


cannon fodder

by ViolyntFemme



Category: Kingsman (Movies), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking, Eggsy lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I mean this is Harry Hart we are talking about, Implied Merlin/Percival, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mentions of Prostitution, Merlin has all the sass, Oc knights, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, implied Roxy/Amelia, implied one-sided Merlin/Lee, more swearing than is really required, reverse kentucky, tiny mention of Daddy Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:10:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 64,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9218348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolyntFemme/pseuds/ViolyntFemme
Summary: To say that Harry had fallen in love the instant he saw Eggsy outside the police station would be a bit grandiose and a little bit of a lie. Interested, yes. Surely he could not be blamed for noticing the boy was attractive, but Harry did not go falling in love with the sons of his fallen comrades just because they had the pertest arse he had ever fucking seen.But to say that Harry died himself when he saw Eggsy’s body hit the pavement would not be eloquent enough. There were no words in the English language, or any language for that matter, to describe the black, yawning ache he felt when he realized Eggsy was gone.A Reverse Kentucky fic, in which Eggsy is the one who goes to Kentucky and Harry is left behind to pick up the pieces.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In the Sherlock fandom I always loved Reverse Reichenbach fics, where John takes the fall and Sherlock is left behind. I wanted the same in the Kingsman fandom, and finding none, I decided to write it myself.
> 
> This fic is 100% complete and 99.9% edited. I hope to update once a week, work and life allowing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> Since I did use some lines straight from the movie script, shall I just acknowledge that I hold no copyright over those lines? Excellent.

Harry sits in his office doing, and by doing he means staring at, mission reports after he dropped Eggsy off with Merlin and the other candidates. He discarded his jacket over the leather sofa to his left as he came in, and his shoulder holsters hang from the coat rack slightly behind him. He pushes the papers around for a few minutes. Putting them in piles makes them seem more formidable, more daunting, because what he assumed were just a few late reports turn out to be a pile two inches thick when he gathers them together.

Sighing, he gives the mission reports up as a bad job and instead pulls the files of the new candidates over to him. He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck while looking them over. He immediately discounts half of them, not including the plant, Amelia, and is pleasantly surprised to see that Percival has, as he always intended to, proposed his niece, Roxanne. Although Harry thinks, it must be bittersweet to propose someone you waited so long to propose, because your lover is lying dead, in pieces, unclaimed, and remembered only by a toast of the shittiest brandy Harry has ever had the displeasure of putting in his mouth.

He leans back in his office chair, it creaking slightly under his weight. Like most of the manor, his office had all the trappings of the high-brow aesthetic that Chester King, their current Arthur, felt Kingman should exude. The whole room was dripping in deep woods, velvets, brocade, and gold. Leather-covered books sat in the built-in bookshelves, books Harry literally in his thirty-year tenure at Kingman, has never once even touched, while oil paintings full of extremely homely people that never smiled stare at him with slightly disappointed gazes. Harry fucking hates it.

A soft knock sounds at his door.

“Come in,” he calls, without looking up.

“Harry,” Merlin says by way of greeting. “Lee’s son? How did you come up with him at the last moment?” Merlin sits after seeing Harry nod at one of his open chairs.

“Easily enough, I pulled a few strings to get him out of jail. I see it is the fresh cohort jumper today, hmm?”

“Oh, aye,” Merlin dusts some nonexistent lint off one of the leather shoulders of his green jumper. “After the water test, I plan on going out and pulling someone because Christ knows it will be last time I get to leave this fucking place until the end of the trials. The leather just helps the lucky lad’s legs stay over my shoulders while I am tacking him to the mattress. I _am_ a considerate lover,” Merlin deadpans.

“Aren’t you just,” Harry rolls his eyes. “Scotch?” Harry moves his hand towards the crystal decanter sitting on the sideboard behind him.

“Why even ask? Of course I want some fucking scotch. I just gave ‘the most dangerous job interview in the world’ speech,” which Merlin illustrates with finger quotes and extremely put upon Scottish eye rolling, “to the most motley assortment of candidates I have ever seen. And seriously Harry, jail? That’s a new low for even you. Arthur is going to choke on his poached eggs tomorrow.”

“God, one can hope, can’t he? And you have said that about every single group we have had through these doors for the last twenty years. It can’t be that bad, chin up.”

“Aye, well some of the little fuckers look promising, but even I have to admit I am a little unsure about your proposal. Lee’s son or not, Gary looks like you picked him up off the street. Of course, then again, I guess you did.” Merlin sips his drink with pleasure.

“Eggsy.”

“Pardon?”

“Eggsy. The boy prefers to be called Eggsy. And judging someone by their background, you surprise me.” Harry looks at Merlin, one eyebrow raised. “I would have thought someone like you would be happy to see someone other than ‘stuffy English twunts’ as proposals.”

“I have no issue where the lad is from, and fuck you for thinking I would, you old cock, but you know that our opinion of backgrounds is far in the minority here, Harry. Kingsman requires much more than knowing how to break someone’s teeth with brass knuckles.”

“But still, a useful skill.” Harry smiles, meeting Merlin’s eyes over the glass.

“Indeed.” Merlin snorts and glances at his watch. “Ah, they should all be sleeping soundly in their beds by now. Want to come watch me drown the little pissants?” Merlin’s eyes are bright.

Harry laughs. “You take way to much pleasure in this, I will watch from here, thank you.”

Merlin nods and starts towards the door.

“Oh, and Merlin, a small favor?”

Merlin rests his head against the door frame and sighs. “Fuck me, this cannot be good. What in God’s name have you done now?”

Harry puts on his sweetest, most innocent face. “If you could be a good chap and wipe my glasses’ footage from about four hours ago I would be most indebted.”

“Harry,” Merlin starts, his brogue becoming thicker in annoyance, “you are already so indebted to me that you could never, if given three more lifetimes, pay it off.”

“Well, what’s one more tick on the list then? I’ll bring you a bottle of your favorite whiskey.”

“Aye, that you will. And you’ll finally tell me the story of how you broke your cock on that honeypot five years ago.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I did not break my cock.” Harry ran a hand through his hair, mussing it from the style he so carefully molded it into this morning.

“Well, since you were walking like that stick up your arse had grown four feet for four days afterward and refused to tell me the reason why I may have made something up to amuse myself. So, a bottle of my favorite whiskey and the story, because fuck knows I’ll need a good laugh after dealing with this lot, or I make sure Arthur sees the footage, whatever it is, right after he finds out who your proposal is.” Merlin grins. Or bares his teeth. With Merlin you never quite knew which.

Harry grinds his teeth, weighing the embarrassing story the mark’s dog coming into the room while he and the mark were intimately engaged, the dog thinking Harry was attacking his master, a groin bite, and Harry toppling off the bed and trying to protect his cock with a hastily grabbed shoe, against Arthur seeing him peacock around in front of the son of a candidate he hated hours before proposing said son to be another candidate he was going to hate even more.

“Fine, come to mine tomorrow night at seven.”

Merlin actually clapped. “Excellent. I have something to live for.”

 _And I have amnesia darts, you bald fuck,_ Harry thinks, smiling to himself.

——————

Arthur’s reaction to Eggsy was just as bad as Harry expected. He knew as soon as he came into the dining room that morning that he should have just had tea at home. Arthur was sitting at the preposterously large table with his tea and the files of the new recruits next to him. His thinning gray hair was pomaded within an inch of its life, and his Kingman classic pinstripe suit looked like he had just had it brought to him this morning, which knowing him, it had been.

“Ah, Galahad, I see you changed your mind about your recruit at the last minute. Instead of Peter Worthington, as we had discussed, you instead brought in,” Arthur’s watery eyes flick down to the folder in front of him, like he hadn’t already memorized the contents, “Gary Unwin. Lee’s son, I see.”

Harry pours himself some tea from the pot and for a moment thinks about adding a slug of whiskey from the small flask in his pocket. Or forgoing the tea all together in favor of the straight whiskey.

“I did.”

“And why did we not go with young Peter then? A good boy, from a good family, he would have fit in well around here, unlike Mr. Unwin. Or are you trying to prove something again?” Arthur folds his hands together and looks at Harry like he is genuinely interested in his reply.

“We agreed on Peter when I had no other prospect to propose, and then suddenly I had one, so I no longer needed Peter. Although, I’m sure one of us will meet an untimely end in the near future so Peter will get his chance soon enough.”

“Mr. Unwin was bailed out, by you, from a police station, and it was certainly not the first time he had been brought in. Why in god’s name do you think we would want someone like that in our ranks?” Arthur’s face was starting to become a slightly blotchy red, the only tell that he was far more angry than his calm tone belied. “We are gentlemen, Galahad, _gentlemen_. The only gentlemen this boy knows are the ones who pay him a few quid for entertainment purposes. I want him gone.”

Harry’s hand tightens around his teacup to the point that he is afraid he may shatter it. True or not, he had just put down one pack of thugs for impugning Eggsy’s name, and it was only by a very tenuous thread that he is controlling the urge to put down one more.

“You know as well as I do, Arthur,” Harry practically sneers the name, there are some benefits of being the most senior, and successful agent in the ranks, “that once the recruitment process has begun there is nothing that can cause a recruit to be removed from his, or her,” Arthur’s face becomes redder at the mention of their female recruit, Percival was definitely next on the chopping block, “cohort besides them failing out, evidence of impropriety, or outside help with the tests. If you have such evidence, I would dearly love to see it.” He looks at Arthur questioningly. “No? Well then, I am terribly afraid that we have no choice to let the best man, or woman, win now.”

“This will not keep happening!” Arthur’s hand slams down on the table, rattling the china. The sagging skin around his jaw quivers with his anger. “You will not keep bringing street trash into an organization that has housed only the finest men England has provided for generations.”

“On the contrary, Arthur, you will find that I will keep recruiting whomever I damn well please. This organization is so inbred that the majority of us can trace half our family line through the agent rolls. We need new blood, young blood, before we become old and obsolete hanging on to our traditions. We are boring, becoming complacent, and one step away from losing touch with what is going on in the outside world.

“It’s time we embrace change, and let it roll through us, like a particularly cleansing, healthy shit. I think you’ll see, if you care to look around, that there are quite a few old turds hanging around this place that could do with a flush.” Harry stands and smooths down his suit, while Arthur sits in front of him, mottled red. “Now, if you will excuse me, something at breakfast didn’t agree with me, and I need to find the loo. Good morning.”

—————

Harry doesn’t get to use his amnesia darts on Merlin that night because whether it’s in retaliation for his performance at breakfast, or the fact that Chester is just a vindictive twat (both, Harry thinks), he is sent on a mind-numbingly boring surveillance mission that very afternoon. He picks up his briefing folder on the way to the jet after leaving two bottles of whiskey on Merlin’s desk, one with a note that says _Payment for Services Rendered_ , and another that says _Don’t leave me out there to rot alone_ , knowing Merlin will check in with him as he can over the course of the mission.

Merlin does one better. Not only does he make time each day to talk to Harry while he sits in a small, sweltering flat in the middle of some small Middle Eastern town he already forgot the name of, but he also makes sure to send Harry’s glasses and laptop snippets of feed from Merlin’s own glasses so he can watch Eggsy progress through the Lancelot trials.

“He’s good, your boy.” Merlin says through his glasses one night, two weeks into this farce of a mission, practically giving Harry a heart attack. “Any movement from your mark?”

“Are we still on for Tuesday?” Harry asks, wanting to know if their line is encrypted. Chester is a nosy leader, and suspicious to boot. If Merlin says yes and names a restaurant, Chester is or could be listening in.

“You have to ask?” Merlin retorts.

“Well, better to be safe. And God no, the man literally works, comes home, has sad wanking sessions to the most _vanilla_ porn I have ever seen in my _entire_ life, goes to sleep, and does it all over again the next day. I don’t even know why I am fucking watching him at this point.”

“Well technically, he is supposedly the pet hacker of some mastermind, but honestly I think it is just because of that ‘cleansing shite’ comment you made, well done you, by the way, I actually have that saved to my computer for the next time you piss me off and I need to remind myself why I don’t completely hate you, but I could have watched him over video and saved you the trip. One of these days you will learn not to taunt Chester.”

“Hope burns eternal. Any idea how much longer I am to be punished?” Harry tries, and fails, to keep the edge of hope out of his voice.

“The old fucker will probably let you back home in a week. I’ll put in a good word for you tomorrow. Not because I like you, mind, but because I’m almost out of drink.” Merlin says.

“I wouldn’t dare to presume. How’s Eggsy faring?” Harry is loathe to admit that he is quite hungry for news about his proposal. Only because he is determined to prove to Chester that pedigree has no bearing on what a person may do with their life surely, not because he has come to cherish the rare moments Merlin catches Eggsy laughing with Roxanne or the way his face lights up when Merlin dispenses the smallest amount of praise. “He seems to be becoming quite close to Roxanne…” Not that Harry cares. Not a wit.

“Oh, aye, thick as thieves, those two. They remind me of us when we went through recruitment together for Galahad. I’ll hate to see it if they come down to the final two, especially since there is not an open Merlin position as well as it was for us.”

“I’m sure we can find something for the one who doesn’t make the cut. You think he is going that far then?”

“I’m sure of it, he is smart, a damn fine team player, and bolder than a tomcat. He and Roxy…”

“Roxy is it now?” Harry says, mirth in his voice.

“Och, hush you lech, yes Roxy, I like the lass, but you know as well as I do, that I prefer men.”

“Prefer yes, but the occasional woman, or women, catch your eye.”

“One time, Harry, one time was it plural, and it was only because you were too busy fucking their boyfriends. I had to take one, or two, for the team, for the sake of our friendship.”

“The sacrifices you make for me Gregor, I am unworthy of your affection.”

“Too fucking right you are.” Merlin pauses, and Harry hears him taking a sip of his tea. “Anyway, as I was saying, Roxy and Eggsy only have completion from the little wankstain that Chester proposed, Charlie. I don’t trust the little fuck as far as I could throw him. I wouldn’t put it past him to be cheating but I haven’t caught him at it yet.”

“Are you going to say anything?”

“Nae, I’ll let the little fuck dig his own grave, possibly literally, for a little while longer. I want to know what he is up to. Besides, who I would I say anything to? He’s Chester’s fucking proposal!” Harry pictures Merlin throwing his hands up in frustration. “But, never mind that right now. Since I am feeling sorry for you, I’ll send you some feed from the obstacle course today. Eggsy has quite the edge with his parkour background. I’m sure you will find it… educational.”

Harry lets that comment slide. If he says anything at this point Merlin will latch onto it like a dog with a particularly meaty bone and he won’t even be able to mention Eggsy’s name without the other man making some sort of innuendo out of it.

“Excellent, I’ve taken to watching bootlegged American sitcoms in my boredom. Ghastly.” Harry was looking forward to seeing Eggsy in action, and not because of the way the boiler suit may or may not stretch across various parts of his chest and or thighs when he exerted himself. Not at all.

—————

"Hey, Merls, you seen Harry around lately?"

Eggsy watches Merlin's broad shoulders stiffen. He grins to himself. Without turning around, Merlin's brogue rumbles his way.

"Lad, I am going to give you one chance, and one chance only, to rephrase that question."

Eggsy puts on his best attempt at Harry's own accent. He stands up straight and puts his hands behind his back as if he was wearing the smartest bespoke suit and not a tartan onesie (which according to Harry was a “siren suit,” _well la ti fucking da then_ ), looking like an absolute prat. "Excuse me, Merlin, sir, but would you happen to know where I might find Mr. Hart?"

"Aye, that I do." Merlin turns around, giving Eggsy a considering look, and looking smug in his warm pea coat.

"Great, where can I find him then?"

"Oh no, I didn't say I would tell you where to find him, I just said I knew where to find him. Now, why don't you be a good lad and give me a couple laps around the track for being an annoyance before I have had my first pot of tea."

"Come on now, guv, don't be like that. It's chilly out here."

"Four laps now, and besides it will warm you right up. Go on now. And don't forget your pack!"

Eggsy rolls his eyes ("Five now, want to try for six you cheeky shit?") and heads to the track with his pack slung across his shoulders. He runs his five, and has to admit, Merlin was right, he was a lot warmer now, and he feels a million times more awake than he did when he went to find Merlin in the morning.

When Eggsy gets back to the barracks he finds a sealed envelope lying on his bed next to JB's snoring form. The pup had only slobbered on one corner of it, a fact Eggsy counted as his first win for the day.

_One might be able to find Mr. Hart in his office at half one this afternoon after his debrief for his latest mission. One also might find that this coincides with their lunch break. Mr. Hart is exceptionally fond of fish and chips, the greasier the better._

_This message will self-destruct in 30 seconds._

Eggsy immediately drops the letter like it had already burst into flames and hears Merlin's laugh echo through the speakers in the room. JB lifts his head, boofs in inquiry, farts, and goes back to sleep. Eggsy locates the nearest camera and gives it two fingers, but with a smile. Merlin is aces, he is, no matter how hard he tries to be an arsehole.

True to Merlin's word, Eggsy finds Harry in his office head bent over the desk and his usually perfectly coiffed hair completely out of his put together style. It is falling into his face a little like he had been running his hands through it in frustration. That little bit of a crack in Harry's usual rock solid composure, coupled with that frankly sexy as fuck shoulder holster, goes straight to Eggsy's cock.

 _Think of Ms. Cooper naked, think of Ms. Cooper naked_. Ms. Cooper was Eggsy's next door neighbor at the estates. Seventy if she was a day, but nice enough, and probably a right proper looking bird in her day, but decades of hard living had taken their toll on her. Once, a couple years before, she asked Eggsy to fix a leak under her sink, and since she had watched Daisy a couple times without asking for payment, he felt like he should. Everything was going fine until he had gone to find her to tell he had fixed it and was heading out. He found her in the bedroom, reclining on the bed, wearing absolutely nothing. Apparently, she had started drinking early that day. She had tried to apply some makeup in what Eggsy supposed she thought was a sultry manner, but just made her look like a raccoon with smeared red lips. When she stood up to walk over to him her pendulous breasts swayed back and forth, almost hypnotizing in a perverse way. _Eggsy,_ she crooned, grabbing him directly by the cock, _why don't you let me pay you for the work you just did for me. Such a good looking boy you are. Elise will take such good care of you._

Eggsy had never run so fast in his life. His semi was definitely gone now.

"Hey, Haz. I figured you could use a break,” he says as he walks through the door.

"Ah, Eggsy. And do not call me ‘Haz.’ You can refer to my as Harry or Sir, those are your choices. And for god’s sakes, learn how to fucking knock.” Harry states, shuffling his papers to one side of the desk.

 _Sir_. Jesus fuck, was that going directly in the file for later.

"Those my only two choices, _Sir_?" Eggsy cocks a brow and watches Harry look up abruptly to lock eyes with him, his eyes dark.

"Yes, I think so.” Harry clears his throat. “For now." Eggsy is definitely not imagining that coy twist of Harry’s lips.

Eggsy watches Harry fastidiously pick his way through some of the greasiest chips Eggsy has ever had the pleasure of eating. Somehow, by the end of the meal, Eggsy has burned through about fifty napkins and has still managed to look like he came out of the wrong side of a fight with an oil fryer, whereas Harry has only used his handkerchief (who the fuck carries monogrammed handkerchiefs?) and is as lovely as ever.

Eggsy hates him just a little. Maybe not.

While they eat, he and Harry talk about nothing of consequence, Eggsy's training, what little Harry can discuss of his latest mission, gossip about the other recruits. Eggsy can't remember the last time he felt so comfortable in someone's presence, besides Roxy, because that girl is a mate through and through, and he thinks Harry kind of feels the same way too. He catches Harry giving him fond looks, and he genuinely laughs at Eggsy's jokes. He has to wonder when the last time Harry just sat around and ate some shite chips with someone, and vows to go out of his way to make this a weekly occurrence if he can.

After lunch, and after Harry has shooed him out of his office with the promise to come find him later in the week, Eggsy makes his way over to the manor kitchens. There he sweet talks a nice looking cook into giving him a thermos of tea, which he leaves on Merlin's desk with a note, _You’re the guv, Merls_. Totally worth four more laps.

—————

A few weeks later Merlin comes down to barracks where Eggsy, Roxy, and Charlie are enjoying some down time. Well, trying to, Roxy is refereeing an immature spitball fight between Eggsy and Charlie and trying not to get hit with anything at the same time.

"Gentleman, and lady," Merlin calls out, and inclines his head towards Roxy. "Eggsy, a word if you please. And Mr. Hesketh, I would suggest that you spend some of this time a little more judiciously, perhaps studying proper marksmanship since you currently hold the lowest marksman scores of the remaining candidates. One way to accomplish this is to join your friends on the firing range.“ Merlin turns and begins to walk out with Eggsy. "And I'll see you tomorrow at the obstacle course at 500 hours, Mr. Hesketh, just because my back is turned does not mean that I cannot see you. Good evening, recruits."

Once the door shuts behind them, Eggsy turns to face Merlin.

"What's up, Merlin? I know I couldn't have done anything wrong today. I seriously have been on my best behavior since that water balloon, that I _totally_ did not throw, hit Arthur's window."

"Harry is in medical lad, he's in a coma." Eggsy turns to start down the hall and Merlin's arm shoots out to grab him by the fabric of his siren suit. "Whoa, Eggsy, you can't go barging into medical demanding to see him. Most recruits do not have the friendship that you and Harry have seemed to foster since you have been here, much less spend as much time together as you two do. You have to canny about it so Arthur doesn't get his knickers in a twist over you any more than he already has."

Eggsy steps back, breathing in and out slowly. "Right, right. Ok. Is he going to be OK, Merlin, I mean why the hell is he in a coma? The last time I talked to him he just said he had to go ask someone a few questions. In and out, he said."

"We don't know a lot yet," Eggsy makes his lip tremble. "But, I have yet to see the thing that could slow Harry down," Merlin adds hastily and looks distinctly uncomfortable. "And I can't discuss what he was doing and where he was doing it. Until you become a knight, if you become a knight, that is classified, but you should be able to get into his room in a couple hours. I'll leave it to you to figure out how to get in and out, because if you're caught I will admit no knowledge of this conversation. And if you do mention my name, you'll be cleaning the barracks with your toothbrush, and you will not be issued another. Understood? Good. You make him proud now."

"Yes, Merlin." Eggsy reaches up and pulls Merlin into a hug, and Merlin responds by immediately stiffening up with his hands stuck out to the side like a particularly graceless scarecrow. "Thanks, Merlin. I knew you were as soft as your jumpers are, I won't tell anyone." Eggsy rubs his face against Merlin's brown jumper and fakes a sob. Merlin becomes stone.

"Lad, if you do not let go of me this instant I will be forced to kill you. Harry will understand, I know he will."

——————

Eggsy makes it to Harry's room that night, and every night he can thereafter. It's no longer the lunches they shared before the coma, with the easy back and forth between them. Now it's just Eggsy talking to Harry, telling him about the trials, how much he worries that it's going to come down to him and Rox, and how much he hopes, that if he doesn't make it to Lancelot, he can find somewhere within Kingsman that he can fit in. Because, and he does not say this out loud, he cannot bear to think of a life where he does not get to have Harry in it.

A month in, Eggsy realizes that it has become completely normal for him to start touching Harry while he is sleeping. Harry had always been the more tactile one, touching Eggsy lightly on the shoulders to correct his posture, leading him through a door with his hand low on Eggsy's back, and Eggsy had always tightly controlled himself so that he did not lean too far into those touches, or reciprocate because he know once he started he would never stop.

It's exactly as he thought too, now that he has started, it's nothing for him to come in and comb Harry's hair and groom the facial hair that has started to grow. He fluffs pillows, smooths bed sheets and duvets, holds Harry's hand while he talks and talks to a silent room, his thumb brushing back and forth, back and forth, over Harry's knuckles. And on some nights, after a particularly grueling day, he just sits with his head against Harry's hand, crying softly into the bedclothes.

"Please wake up, Harry, please. I miss you so fucking much. I just need you to wake up already."

A few months later, Harry does.

—————

Eggsy can’t say this is the first time he has woken up from a drug haze to find himself tied down with some strange man looming over him, but it is the first time it has been train tracks he’s tied to and not a bed. He struggles. And as the man asks him questions, he realizes that this time he might truly be fucked.

“Who is Harry Hart?”

“I don’t know who the fuck that is!” Eggsy yells, still struggling.

“Eggsy, I just killed two of your friends who gave me the same bullshit answer!”

Fuck, Eggsy thinks, Roxy and Charlie are dead? Charlie, that's no big loss, but Eggsy’s stomach bottoms out with the thought of Roxy being hurt. He was supposed to spend the night shagging some bird’s brains out, instead it looks like he was going to be so much jam all over the tracks.

“Just cut the fucking ropes, please!”

The creep above him smiles. “Hey, Eggsy! Is Kingsman worth dying for?”

“Fuck you!” Eggsy screams, fitting last words he thinks.

Only they aren’t his last words, he feels the rush of air blow against his face where the train has passed over him, but not through him, and he opens his eyes to see Harry standing over him, looking sinfully good in a black wool overcoat and his normal suit. With a knife.

“Congratulations. Bloody well done.”

As the platform Eggsy is on rises up and Harry crouches down to cut the ropes, Eggsy feels himself getting a semi right in front of Harry. He blames it on the residual adrenaline pumping through his veins and the fact that Harry looks like some sort of Daddy as Fuck dream leaning over him to cut the ropes. He has never been so thankful for dark tunnels and dark jeans in his entire life, because if Harry notices Eggsy is all hot and bothered over him, he is pretty sure he will just die on the fucking spot.

Eggsy focuses on breathing slowly out through his mouth and in through his nose, almost succeeding in willing his cock to deflate until he feels Harry’s hands pet the legs of his jeans down from where he had to ruck them up to cut the ropes.

_Fuck me, how was something so innocent so fucking hot?_

Eggsy is so lost in trying to keep his body in check that he completely misses the fact that Harry is standing back up and offering him a hand.

He reaches out and takes it, his feverish skin feeling sinfully good against Harry’s cool hand. He doesn’t want to let go. And he doesn’t, he just uses his forward momentum to kind of fall against Harry’s firm chest. Harry’s arms come around him, rubbing soothing circles on his back. He is trembling minutely.

“Breathe Eggsy, in and out, just like that.” And Eggsy does, inhaling the comforting scent of Harry’s probably ridiculously expensive cologne.

“Jesus, bruv, you smell good.” His voice shakes just a little.

Harry chuckles against him. “Well, I hope so, my dear boy. For a thousand pounds a bottle, I had best smell fucking delightful.”

 _The posh wanker._ Eggsy wonders what Harry smells like fresh out of the bath, before the thousand quid cologne.

_He is so fucked._

—————

“Galahad, Percival, congratulations. Your candidates have reached the final stage of the testing process. As tradition allows, you now have 24 hours to spend with them.”

As they begin to file out, Merlin speaks once more. “Galahad, a word if you will.”

“Eggsy, wait in the hall. I’ll fetch you in a moment,” Harry says as everyone begins to file out.

Eggsy nods and follows Roxanne out, clapping her on the shoulder in congratulations.

“Harry, I certainly hope I don’t have to tell you to keep your hands off of him tonight.”

“No, you most certainly don’t.” Harry tries to look affronted but by Merlin’s sardonic look, he can tell he just manages to look guilty.

“Good, because that boy has everything to play for right now and one hint, one, Harry, of impropriety and Arthur will try to have him pulled from candidacy before you can blink.”

“He couldn’t if he tried, but you don’t have a thing to worry about, Merlin. Eggsy certainly isn’t interested in me like that, and I have had years to learn how to control my baser impulses.”

“Oh, ho, he doesn’t, eh? That’s why he walked in here with an erection from you untying the ropes.”

“Hogwash, he did not. He sees me as a father figure, nothing more.”

“A Daddy more like it.” Merlin mumbles.

“I do beg your pardon?”

“Harry, I know what a man trying to hide an erection walks like,” Merlin gives Harry a pointed look, which Harry refuses to look away from. “The boy was gagging for it. I don’t care what happens after he is knighted, but he had better stay gagging for it until then. Now, off with you. I have to decide whether to let Charlie out or leave him there for the next train.”

—————

As he takes Eggsy home for their 24 hours together, he is loathe to admit that Eggsy wasn’t the only one gagging for it. Harry was perfectly aware of the fact Eggsy was aroused back on the tracks. Harry could see the promising bulge growing against Eggsy’s zip, and when he crouched down to cut the ropes, he could fucking smell Eggsy’s arousal mixed with nervous sweat. Harry will never admit it aloud, but his mouth actually watered from it. His own erection was thankfully was hidden by his coat, and he could walk with one perfectly, fuck you so very much Merlin.

But he was honest about one thing. He would not touch Eggsy until after he was Lancelot. He owed him that much. So he spends the night ignoring Eggsy’s increasingly flirtatious tone, which seems to increase with each martini he has Eggsy make, instructing him on how to be a gentleman.

“Bruv,” Eggsy starts, completely ignoring the nasty look Harry gives him, “I got to ask, what the fuck is up with your house?” Eggsy lounges in the opposite chair, snapback discarded, but that hideous gold plaque jacket still on, his jeans hugging those deliciously thick thighs, ones that would feel so good around his waist. Harry aches to just _bite_ them.

 _Jesus._ Harry clears his throat. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean downstairs it’s fussy and shite, but up here in your study, you got nice leather, clean lines you know, sleek.” Eggsy holds out his hand with the martini in it and moves it around, indicating the red walls with the Sun headlines showcased on it.

“Oh, well, I lost a bet.” Harry replies, sitting down after discarding his jacket on the rack next to him. He does not miss the way Eggsy’s eyes track over his shoulder holster. He leaves it on.

“What, with your gran? She and you bet that that Jaffa Cakes were better than Hob Nobs when dunked in tea? And you lost so’s you only got to decorate the one room?”

“No, you impudent little shit, I lost a bet with Merlin so I let him decorate this one room so he could stop bitching about the rest of the house when he came over for dinner. Dunking biscuits in tea, where were you raised?”

“The estates. Oh, come on, Harry. Seriously, you, Harry Hart, gentleman spy, breaker of hearts and all around posh bastard with thousand quid cologne, chose the fucking doilies and dead butterflies?” Eggsy laughs, clear and high, and Harry loves it. He might love him.

“Yes, I find it relaxing to come home to.”

“Bull, I still say your gran decorated and you’re just too lazy to change it.”

“Cheeky, don’t think you’re too big to be taken over someone’s knee.” Harry really hadn’t meant anything by it, but he regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth. Immediately Eggsy’s breath hitches, and he focuses on Harry with a laser-like intensity. The room suddenly seems about ten degrees warmer.

Harry clears his throat, _again_ , desperate to put a damper on this heat arcing between them. “Let me tell you about these headlines then,” he says turning his face to the wall.

He only loses his composure once. After he leads a tipsy Eggsy up the stairs to the guest bedroom, he stops them outside the door. Eggsy’s back hits the wall and his green eyes look up at Harry, his pupils dilating as he notices how close Harry’s face is to his. He licks his pink little lips, his breath, scented with gin, fans out over Harry’s skin. The fire, banked earlier by Harry’s misdirection immediately burns hot again. Harry could kiss him right now, he thinks. He could, he could kiss him until the boy was breathless with it, till he was panting Harry’s name like the most holiest of prayers, and then he could lead the way into his bedroom, spread Eggsy on the sheets like a sacrifice, and worship him.

He could, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just leans a little closer, his left hand on the wall, and his right on Eggsy’s face.

“Eggsy.”

“Yeah?” Eggsy’s breath is already speeding up.

“I have something important to say to you, so you need to listen to me.” Harry’s thumb caresses a smooth cheekbone.

“Yeah, Harry.”

“Tomorrow, when you go in for your final task. I want you to remember one thing. I will never, ever put you or anyone you love in danger knowingly. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, Harry.” Eggsy’s eyes are half-lidded, his breathing accelerating. His hand creeps up and a finger trails along one of the straps of the holster Harry never took off. Eggsy’s eyes follow his finger.

“Eggsy, I swear to you, this might be the most important thing I ever say. You have to listen to me.”

Eggsy’s eyes snap back to his. “Yeah, Harry, I got you. You will never put me or mine in danger.”

“Do you believe that? Do you trust me?” Harry’s eyes bore into Eggsy’s willing him to understand what he is saying.

“With my life, Harry.”

“Excellent.” Harry abruptly stands up, releasing Eggsy from the cage of his body. He watches as Eggsy blinks slowly. “Now, off to bed with you. Tomorrow is a big day.”

Harry finds himself in the shower later, slowly and tortuously fucking his own fist, picturing Eggsy spread out on his sheets, his lithe body taking Harry’s cock like Harry knows he will, only it doesn’t seem as much like a job well done as much as actually fucking Eggsy would have.

The next morning Harry cooks them breakfast, trying and failing to teach Eggsy any meaningful table manners, and then takes him to the shop to get measured for his first suit. Eggsy tries to nick a lighter from the armory, which Harry almost lets him get away with just because Harry enjoys the cheek of it, but at the last minute decides to call him out on it.

Harry is both dreading and highly anticipating measuring Eggsy for his suit. The prospect of getting his hands all over Eggsy, even under the guise of a fitting, leaves his mouth a little dry and his heart beating a little faster. So of course, it has to go completely to shite when they walk out to find Valentine in the shop. Unwilling to have Eggsy around Valentine any more than he already was, Harry gives him over the Dagonet for his fitting, inwardly groaning at the thought of anyone but him, even the ancient tailor, touching Eggsy, but Valentine tracking him to the shop was… unexpected, even after that spy movie crack during that farce of a meal they shared. He needs to find Merlin and fast.

—————

Eggsy is confused. Very confused. He and Harry practically eye fuck each other all night, and where does he end up? In the fucking guest. Then he gets dragged to the shop so Harry can fit him for a suit. As soon as Harry gives him the whole “popping one’s cherry line” Eggsy is convinced that the only fitting he is going to get is seeing how well Harry’s cock fits right up his arse, if you catch his drift. He was already in some seriously deep fantasies about that saddle he glimpsed in the first fitting room when Richmond Valentine shows up and makes himself into the most inconvenient cockblock ever. _Fuck his life._ Now he’s stuck sitting on his thumbs, back in this itchy as fuck all onesie waiting for whatever it is to happen so he can finally get in Harry’s pants, ahem, become Lancelot.

“Nervous Eggs?” Roxy’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts.

“No. Yes.” He scratches the nape of his neck. “Sort of. More nervous about it being this whole big secret more than anything. I mean we’ve jumped out of planes, been tied to train tracks, and all that shite. What’s left?” He looks over at her, stretched on her bed, her poodle Bojangles, lying next to her.

“I have no clue. I tried getting something out of Alex, uh, Percival last night, but no dice.”

“Oh! First name basis with ol’ Perce, huh?” He waggles his eyebrows.

She smiles a small, secretive smile. “I am.” She gives nothing else away. Dark horse, she is.

Eggsy flips around on his bed so he’s laying on his stomach, his head perched on his hands and his feet pointed towards the ceiling in a parody of a school girl. “Well. Dish.”

Roxy looks away, and then back again. “Well, I mean, we are closer than most sponsors and their candidates usually are…” She blushes. Eggsy’s mouth drops open. He has not seen her blush not once during training. Not when they had to use communal showers. Not when they had walked in on Hugo rubbing one out in those showers. Not when he and Charlie had walked in on her rubbing one out. Jesus, what the hell had gone on last night? He didn’t know whether to feel proud as fuck of her for getting a leg over on the only person in the entire manor that seemed more buttoned up than Merlin, or jealous about said leg over while he was sleeping in the fucking guest.

“What happened, Rox? Com’on, put a bruv out of his misery, yeah?” At least he could live vicariously through her if needed. And she deserved some nice memories since she was going to lose today. “Did you fuck him?” She looks squarely at him. “You did, you rode old Percy like a horse didn’t’ ya? Rox, you minx, I bet he never even saw you coming. Well, I mean he obviously saw you coming right? I mean he did right by you, right? Got you off, whispered sweet nothings like a proper bloke? Because if he didn’t, I don’t care if he is an agent I will go find that selfish prick…”

“Eggsy, he’s my uncle.”

“… and I will kick his skinny arse right - he’s your what?”

“He’s my uncle, for heaven’s sake.” Roxy looks at him and completely loses it, laughing deep belly laughs with tears coming out of her eyes. Eggsy dives on top of her on her bed, straddles her, and begins tickling her causing her laughs to become shrieks.

“Candidates.” Merlin voice booms overhead. “Your final task has begun. Roxanne meet me in the briefing room, Eggsy you will go to Arthur’s office. Bring your dogs. You have ten minutes.”

They both slowly stand up, not looking at one another. The mirth of a moment gone, replaced with fear, dread, and just a touch of excitement. They clip the leashes onto Bojangles and JB’s collars and head towards the door.

“Rox, wait a mo’, will ya?”

“We have to go Eggsy, Merlin said ten minutes.” She’s practically vibrating.

“What are they gonna do, start without us?” He ducks his head, scratching at his nape again. “Listen, I just want to say that I am glad it is you and me at the end. If I have to lose to someone, I’m glad it’s you. You’ve been a proper mate, you have, and I love you like you were me sis’. I just hope that no matter what happens now, that this ain’t the last time we see each other.”

He looks up to see Roxy’s lip trembling and her eyes wet. “Eggsy Unwin, I hate you so much right now. No matter what happens, we are friends and that will never change.”

They wrap their arms around each other, neither commenting on the other’s trembling. Just holding each other, taking one last bit a comfort before everything changes.

—————

“Shoot the dog.” Arthur says, triumph in his eyes.

Eggsy looks at the gun in his hands and to JB, his large brown eyes looking back at him like Eggsy hung the moon. Of course to JB, Eggsy did hang the moon, Eggsy was warmth, love, and food, and JB was the one thing that loved him back and asked for nothing. He could not shot him. He could not.

Harry’s voice from last night comes back to him, the way he looked into Eggsy’s eyes like it was the most important thing in the world for Eggsy to understand. _“Tomorrow, when you go in for your final task. I want you to remember one thing. I will never, ever put you or anyone you love in danger knowingly. Do you understand me? Do you believe that? Do you trust me?”_

“With _his_ life, Harry.” Eggsy whispers and pulls the trigger.

—————

Arthur is on a rampage for the rest of the day. Harry is torn between absolute delight and absolute dread. This is the second time an Unwin has defied all expectation and made it past the final test along with the other candidate. Eggsy bursts into Harry’s office, carrying a somewhat shellshocked JB in his arms, sets the dog on the floor, walks right up to Harry and pulls him into a hug.

“I did it, Harry. I trusted you with my life and with JB’s, and I made it.” Eggsy says into Harry’s neck. “Merlin said there will have to be another test to decide who wins, but I made it as far as me dad did. He’d be proud, yeah?”

“Yes, Eggsy, he would be ever so proud of you, as I am. You are amazing Eggsy, simply amazing.” Eggsy squeezes him tighter, and Harry returns it, praying to everything he has never believed in before that the second task does not take this Unwin from him as well.

—————

 

“Not gonna lie, mate, I look swag as fuck in this, yeah?”

Eggsy turns about in the mirror admiring the way the suit fits him. And yes, Harry has to admit that he does look “swag as fuck.” The perfect tailoring accentuates the broad expanse of Eggsy’s shoulders, the cut of his waist, and the trousers, heaven help Harry, but they hug that round arse of Eggsy’s perfectly. Harry breathes in and out twice, trying to keep himself together. He doubts very much that Eggsy would appreciate him sporting an erection at his first fitting.

“Yes, Eggsy, although I would use the word ‘debonair,’ or perhaps even ‘suave.’ ‘Swag as fuck’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.” Harry smiles at him in the mirror, watching Eggsy’s face glow like it does anytime he hears Harry say something less than gentlemanly.

And as narcissistic as he knows it is, the possessive part of Harry, and god help him, it is such a large part, positively purrs inside his chest to see his boy not only dressed in clothes that Harry picked out, but in a near replica of Harry’s own favorite suit, the suit he was wearing today, the cut only changed to allow for their differences in body type. The dark navy makes his green eyes seem almost emerald, while the subtle gold of the pinstripe makes the gold of Eggsy’s hair and skin positively glow. Harry’s hands twitch at his side with the urge to touch, so he does, smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles on the shoulders of the jacket. He turns Eggsy around, smoothing out the lapels, and perhaps, just perhaps, letting the back of his hands linger over firm pectoral muscles.

_This fucking boy._

“Ok, so we got the suit, but I still need a tie, don’t I? I mean, if I am going on my first mission I need to look the part.” Eggsy looks around the fitting room at the array of ties Harry has laid out even though he knows which one he is going to choose. He moves over to the small rack holding them, and starts laying them across his arm to see how they match the suit.

“Well, it’s not so much a mission, as it is another test.”

“Do you know what we will be doing? All Merlin said was that the mission could come at any time, could be tomorrow, could be a fucking week from now. But he wouldn’t say much more about it. I suppose I will be sent in to seduce some rich heiress and whatnot, you know, playing on my natural skills and all.” Eggsy threw him a cheeky wink before he started trying to tie he chose properly.

“You, of course, will be going on a reconnaissance mission, as will Roxanne, and whomever comes back with the required information is Lancelot.”

“And if we both do?” Eggsy says over his shoulder while studying the ties.

“Well, then, there's nothing left but the final of all tests, a bit cut throat truth be told, and guaranteed only one person will come out victorious, if they come out at all.”

Eggsy pales a bit, his hands pausing at his throat. “You serious, bruv? Me and Rox got a fight to the death or some such shite?”

“It’s only happened once in all of Kingman history, and sadly enough, both candidates lost.” Harry lets his face twist with a bit of practiced sadness and worry.

“Jesus, Harry… what the fuck happened?” Eggsy is growing paler by the moment.

“Both candidates had to seduce our Arthur, and they decided to take the blade in their shoes instead.”

Eggsy looks at him incredulously for a split second before he bends double laughing. “Oh, fuck you, Harry. I thought you was serious for a moment. I didn’t know whether to be completely terrified, completely disgusted, or a combination of both.”

Harry smiled at Eggsy, who was still chuckling under his breath but had recovered enough to go back to the ties.

“And would you have? If the job demanded it?” Harry asks, genuinely curious.

“Sure the fuck would have bruv, cos there ain’t no way I am losing now. After the look on old Chesty’s face when I pulled the trigger on JB, and I still ain’t forgiven you lot for that, proper shite that whole thing was, I would fuck the old codger just to make him have to look at me over the breakfast table every day for the rest of his miserable life and remember what my cock felt like in his old wrinkled arse.”

Harry laughs loudly. He knocks tears away from his eyes with his handkerchief. “You are a perfect testament to my legacy, Eggsy. Absolutely perfect.” He watches Eggsy continue to struggle with his tie. “Good gods man, you’re murdering that silk. Let me help you.” Harry walks over and moves his arms around Eggsy, taking the smaller hands in his to guide them into tying the knot properly.

“There,” Harry starts as he spins Eggsy around to look at him properly, “now you look like a proper…”

His words are abruptly cut off when Eggsy grabs his tie to pull him down to his mouth. Harry freezes, because for all the times he has pictured this, dreamt about it, and planned it, this was not how he thought it happen. He had promised Merlin, and he had promised himself. He could not, would not, take this step with Eggsy until he had become Lancelot. Not because of any notion of a power imbalance or what not, there would always be a slight power imbalance between them no matter what, but because he knew Merlin was right about Chester and that the stodgy fuck would use this to try to keep Eggsy out. Chester was barely tolerant of homosexuality at best, unless the mission called for it, and was a right homophobe at worst, and Harry had meant it when he said he would do nothing to put Eggsy’s chances in danger.

Eggsy notices Harry’s lack of response, but instead of pulling away, he just turns to the kiss into something more fierce, almost begging Harry to respond to him. And, Harry, as much as it rips him in two, pushes him away.

“No, Eggsy, this is not something we can do. Not now.”

Eggsy’s skin flushes a furious red. He, as he has done all of his life, lashes out when hurt, and this time is no different. “Since when? You don’t think I haven’t seen you look at me arse? And what about all those touches you’re always giving me, huh? Your hands are always on me. Why in the fuck can we not do this?”

“Because, you are…”

“What, a pleb? Not good enough for ya? I’m good enough for you to eye me up like I’m a rent boy on the corner, but not good enough for you to kiss.”

“Would you listen for a moment, for god's sake?” He slams his hand against the wall. “That most certainly not it, Eggsy. We cannot do this until you’re knighted, we have to be equals, don’t you see?”

But Eggsy does not see. All he hears in that sentence is exactly what he wants to hear.

“So’s that is it. I’m not your equal until I am Lancelot, until then I’m just that dirty little chav you picked up off the street. Until then, _I’m not good enough_.”

Just then, Merlin’s voice comes through Harry’s glasses. “Galahad, is your boy with you?”

“I am certainly not his fucking boy, Merlin. But yeah, I’m here.”

“One, watch your fucking mouth boy,” Merlin growls, “And two, get your arse to the jet. Your final test starts now. You will find your mission packet on the plane, along with whatever else you are deemed to need to complete the task. You have ten minutes to get there, so I suggest you and Galahad sort out your little domestic and you can leave your fucking attitude at the hangar door.”

“Understood, Galahad out.”

Eggsy is already walking to the door, when Harry calls his name. “Eggsy, please, don’t leave like this.”

“You heard the man, I have ten minutes. I’ll be back soon, and I’ll be Lancelot if it’s the last damn thing I do Harry. But you and me, we won’t ever be equals.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right now, I don’t fucking care. I’ll sort this mess out when I get back.” And with that Eggsy is gone.

Harry stands in the fitting room, looking around at Eggsy’s discarded clothes. Out of nothing else to do, he begins picking them up and folding them. Eggsy will want them back when he comes home.

Once he has them folded and in his arms, he heads down to Avalon, Merlin’s domain, to find out just what this final task entails. Avalon is the one place where the oppressive brocade and rich mahogany has not been able to establish a toehold. Much like Merlin’s influence in Harry’s office, it is polished chrome and hardware. The workstations that line the walls has their own set of three monitors that allow each handler to watch the agent, watch the area around them, and hack simultaneously. Merlin’s workstation, the largest, since he handles all the major missions regardless of agent seniority, is in the middle of the back wall, with six monitors, two rows of three stacked on top of one another. Merlin can be found there usually, jumper-clad with various cups of tea strewn about his desk at almost any given point during the day. Today Harry finds Merlin uncharacteristically in jeans, a faded band tee, and boots.

“My god, what are you wearing?” Harry asks, his mouth open in shock.

“Contrary to popular belief, I do have a life outside of here. One which I was living until Arthur called me in on my _first fucking day off in over three months_ to tell me that the final task was starting now, and it was my job to get the recruits going.”

“And what will they be doing?”

“Roxy will be going as herself, Lady Morton, to a fundraiser Valentine is holding tonight for some bullshite. I will be handling her. As you know, normally it is the recruits mentor that handles them in situations like this, but Percival is still weathering Chester’s wrath for proposing a woman, and is on a mission in Spain, playing the tutor of a drug kingpin’s children.” Merlin smirks. “Percival fucking hates children.”

“And Eggsy?”

“He is being handled by Chester himself, because he doesn’t think you would be impartial enough to do so, and I am already handling Roxy. Eggsy will be going to Kentucky to poke around a bigoted church that kept on showing up in Valentine’s computer, South Glade Mission Church. All he needs to do is find out why Valentine is so interested in it. As long as he can keep from punching anyone while they prattle on about hellfire and damnation, he should be in and out.”

Harry laughs and feels a bit calmer, at least it’s not anything like the mission he and Merlin had been on with James and Lee.

“I don’t like it, and I certainly don’t trust Chester.”

“Neither do I, so while I can’t let you talk to Eggsy, I was able to run a hidden encrypted feed of his glasses to your private server, which you should be able to access from your office upstairs. Go on up and check to see if it’s working. Ping my glasses twice if it is, but don’t say anything. I can guarantee I am not transmitting now on my glasses, but once I sit down to handle Roxy, I will be.”

Harry claps Merlin on the shoulder, “Thanks, Gregor.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t ever mention it, to anyone. And don’t worry Harry, it’s a church. What could go wrong?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy goes to church.

 

Eggsy is equal parts fucking pissed and ashamed as he boards the plane. His heart is hammering within his chest, splintering itself on his ribs, reforming, and splintering again. His hands shake, his eyes burn. Stupid, he was, for trying something on with Harry. Harry can have his pick of men, or women, Eggsy really isn’t sure of his preference, or if Harry even has one to be honest, so of course he wouldn’t waste his time with Eggsy, a chav from the estates. All those admiring looks and touches were no different from the ones he got from the posh johns that used him in his life before Kingsman. He's just a pretty hole, that’s all he’d ever be to the likes of Harry.

He needs a drink. Luckily, Kingsman seems to be filled with functional alcoholics, their cabs have a fucking liquor cabinet in them for fuck's sake, so Eggsy is not surprised in the least to find some whiskey waiting on the bar when he boards. He promptly pours himself two fingers.

“Eggsy,” Arthur’s voice comes through the speakers in the plane’s cabin, “in the case on the table you will find all the things you need for the following mission. You have six hours to read the mission brief, learn your objective, and chose what you will be taking in with you. I will ping your glasses after that time to answer any questions. I will be handling you myself, is that clear?” 

“Yes, sir.” Eggsy forces himself to be controlled, be normal. 

“Excellent, Arthur out.”

“Please strap in, sir,” the pilot’s voice comes across the speakers, replacing Arthur’s. “We are about to take off.”

Eggsy does as he is told, straps himself in, and pulls the case towards him. The case holds a pair of Kingsman issued glasses, watch, a gun, with live ammo in this one by the weight of it, with a holster, and a mission packet. 

Apparently, he is on his way to some backwoods town in Fuck Knows Where, KY to scout a hate group, thinly disguised as a church, for information on Valentine. The name had shown up in some transmissions that Kingsman was able to pull out of Valentine’s servers, and people within the Valentine organization had been seen with the group’s propaganda. _Seems easy enough_ , Eggsy thinks. His biggest challenge would be sitting there and listening to the absolute shite being spouted. But, he listened to Dean for years, what is one more bigoted arsehole? His cover, in case anyone asks, was that of a rich boy come from across the pond, who was driven out of his home by the disgust of seeing his father take a male lover. Eggsy really hopes he doesn’t have to make small talk with these fucks.

He goes over the mission brief a few more times, memorizing his name and background details, until he can remember them without glancing at the papers. He then sets his watch to wake him ten minutes before Arthur is due to patch back in.

He sleeps.

Just a few minutes later it seems, his watch is chiming softly in his ear. He gets up, and moves about the cabin, making himself some tea, shaking the grogginess out of his head, and admiring himself in the mirror. He is going to make one hell of a Lancelot. He thinks about Roxy, wondering what her mission is, and what will happen of they both defy the odds and make it out of this test with the required information to win. Will it just be test after test until one of them drops?

“Eggsy? Ah, there you are. Admiring your suit I see, eh boy? So nice of Galahad to have it made for you.” Arthur’s false cheer grates on Eggsy’s last nerve. He knows how that pompous fuck had reacted when he had “shot” JB, so Arthur acting like he gave a fuck stokes the anger already simmering under Eggsy’s skin.

“Yes, sir. Just thinking how much I’ll enjoy wearing these suits once I am officially Lancelot.” Eggsy smirks into the mirror where he knows Arthur can see him, the crusty fuck.

“Yes, well first things first. Let’s talk about the mission in front of you. You’ve read the briefing I assume?”

“Yes, sir, memorized it and my cover.”

“Good, good. It should be an in and put job. You will go in for the service, and after it is over, make nice with the head of the Church. His name, along with some of the congregation members, feature quite prominently into some chatter around the Valentine Company and we would like to know why.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Quite.” Arthur pauses. “I will be on the other side of your glasses, but I will not be handling you in the sense that full agents are handled. I am here to observe and grade, no more, unless an emergency crops up, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent, my boy. Well, if nothing else then, I will speak to you when you get done with your mission.” Arthur says.

“Um, actually, I do have one question, if I may.”

“Certainly, far be it from me to not encourage learning and curiosity.” Eggsy wants to punch him. Multiple times. Wearing rings.

“What will happen if Roxy and I both are successful in this mission?” 

“Ah, good question! It has only happened once in the past hundred years, long before my time, even as an agent, but according to Kingsman standards, if the final two candidates make it through the tie-breaking task, then they are both promoted to the table. One of you would be Lancelot, and the other would take on another, empty, seat. Rarely are all of our code names in use at any given time.”

“So’s we’d both be knights then?” Eggsy’s heart races for an entirely new reason. He is definitely going to be a knight, and so is Roxy, because there ain’t no way that girl is going to fail, no way in hell.

“Indeed. Now I am signing off, but if you have any other questions, just tap the right side of your glasses. Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.” 

He and Roxy are both going to the Table. _Fucking Aces_.

—————

Eggsy cannot sit in this damned church one more minute, not one, and listen to this man spew the worst kind of hate out of his swine-like face. He was wrong, this is worse than Dean. Dean may have talked a good game, but Eggsy knew it was mostly just bullshite. But these fucking people believed everything they were hearing, and worse, even parroting back to the man at the pulpit. He had to get a breath of fresh air and collect himself before he could even think about having a conversation with any of these arseholes.

“Would you excuse me?” Eggsy puts on his best posh accent, Harry’s accent to be honest, but he doesn’t care to look at that too closely.

“Where are you going?” The homely woman next to him makes no move to let him through. “Hey, what’s your problem?” She gets a little louder as he tries to move past.

Eggsy sits back down. “I’m a former rentboy that enjoys letting older men fuck me up the arse while calling them Daddy. In fact, I am heading out the door to let your repressed husband do just that to me right now, so why don’t you stick that bible up your frigid cunt and twirl on it, yeah?” Eggsy smiles sweetly and pushes out of the row. 

The woman follows him as he walks out. The rest of the congregation begins to stand up watching both his and her progression down the aisle. Phones are going off, simultaneously, all around him. _Out, I have to get out, I cannot think…._  

She is screaming at him. “You just leave this church like the infidel you are!” _God, will they just answer their fucking phones? Get out_ , _Eggsy_ , he tells himself. The phones are louder, mixing with the woman’s high-pitched squealing, worming into his brain. _Get out!_

“Satan cannot save you now!” Eggsy is losing the ability to think, it’s too loud, he has to shut her up, he has to before the noise makes his brain liquefy and run out of his ears. It’s too fucking LOUD.

“You will eat your babies. You will drown in the blood of the Lord!”

 _SHUT HER UP! SHUT HER UP!_  

“He will not save you!”

Eggsy stops. He reaches into the left side of his suit, where his gun is safe and warm under his arm. He calmly pulls it out, turns, and aims at her forehead in one smooth movement. He hates. He hates her, he hates Harry, he hates Arthur he hates everyone and everything that has ever brought him to this fucking moment in this fucking church with it’s too loud fucking Americans spouting their hate and their vitriol and their fucking phones screaming around him in his head like a murder of crows cawing all at once in his head until he cannot think and he has to stop it stop her stop them stop the sounds stop it stop it all before…

He shoots, the slight recoil rolling over him like an orgasm.

Her brains and blood blow back on the man behind her. Pandemonium ensues. The door he was trying to go out of just moments before no longer beckons to him, instead, as he watches the people in front of him begin tearing each other apart, he moves forward to join them.

Bodies crash into him he pivots with their weight discharging his weapon with lightning speed and precision. He will kill every single one of these arseholes in this godforsaken ramshackle building and then he will kill everyone outside of it and then he will….

Coherent thought leaves him. All he knows now is the movement of his body as he uses a dead man as a body shield. One bullet to an old woman coming at him with a knitting needle, aiming for his eye. One bullet for a teenager, switchblade out and gunning for his throat. Bullet after bullet finds their mark until his gun clicks in his hand, empty. He pulls it apart, jamming one piece through a man’s eye and the other up through his chin. Blood flies out of the man’s head, covering him in its spray.

He wall runs up over a teeming mass of at least seven people, throws his lighter into the middle, hears the muffled _whump_ of it igniting and sees the bodies fly apart. The blast hits him as well, knocking him to the floor. For a moment the ringing in his ears clears his head. He looks up, confused, trying to figure out why he’s on the floor, covered in blood and everyone in the church seems dead set on killing each other, and then it’s back, screaming through his head, the buzzing in his ears throwing him back into the fray. 

He moves, twists and uses anything he can get his hands on to take out the target in front of him. His thighs crack a neck, a brazier of incense in his hand becomes a fiery mace cleaving skulls and dislocating jaws. He pulls a post out of the floor with his bare hands and runs it through three people fighting in the corner. His hands gouge eyeballs. Blood drips off his chin, he spits two fingers out of his mouth.

He hates. He kills. _He kills_. 

Silence.

He can think again. He is alone.

Eggsy stands in the middle of the church, looking around the room, the only person alive in what has to be at least a forty bodies, maybe more if you count the body parts littered across the floor. He is unsure if those are other people or just pieces from the larger whole. He is going to be sick, he thinks. He wipes blood off of his glasses, off his chin, panting, horrified. He looks down at his trembling hand that still holding a knife he doesn’t recognize but he knows he just used to disembowel the man at his feet.

He has to get out.

Eggsy moves to the door, various pressure points of pain making him feel like he is made out lead.

He stumbles out into the Kentucky sun. He is not alone.

—————

After the dim of the church, the Kentucky sunlight is blinding. Eggsy is disoriented, partially because his brain still feeling like it has been run through his mum’s mixer and poured back into his skull, and partially because he can’t fucking see a thing. He staggers forward, shaking his head to clear it and looks up.

Valentine, the girl with knives for fucking feet, and two goons stare back at him. The goons, of course, are training their guns on him. Adrenaline cycles back into his bloodstream instantly, clearing the residual fog from moments ago. Eggsy is weaponless, in a place he doesn’t know from fuck all, he is scared shitless, and he really just wants to go home and see Harry. He promised he would sort this mess out when he got back, and if he gets to go back, he damn well will. He’ll start it by kissing Harry and then maybe punching him. But he will definitely start with a kiss.

“What did you do to me? I killed all those people and I wanted to. I _liked_ it.” Eggsy asks, his voice shaky. The recycled adrenaline high is making him feel like he just did a bump of bad blow. Jittery as fuck all and hyperaware of everything.

Valentine smiles at him. “Clever, isn't it? In simple terms, it's a neurological wave that triggers the centers of aggression and switches off inhibitors. In other words, it takes all those manners you have been taught all of your life and simply turns them off, allowing you to become who you really are.” Valentine claps slowly, “And I have to hand it to you, Eggsy…it is Eggsy right?”

Eggsy nods. _Keep them talking he thinks, keep them talking because someone saw this. Arthur saw this over his feed and someone is coming for him right now._ His glasses are silent, he prays they are still transmitting like they say they are. _Help me,_ he thinks.

“Eggsy, yeah, that’s a funny name, but you British people are funny anyway. Barely understand you people half the fucking time. Well anyway, Gazzy and I, we have to hand it to you,” Valentine continues, “you really surpassed all expectations we had for you, my man. I mean, we knew these inbred, racist bastards would throw down and just kill everyone in sight, I mean that’s what assholes like this do. But you, Gazzy says you cut through them like a knife through butter, just back and forth, dead and dead. She was quite impressed.” He smiles at her and gives her a little smack on her bottom before walking towards Eggsy.

“So’s what was the point of all that then? Just wanted to see how good I am?” Eggsy tries for a smile. “Thinking maybe if things don’t work out for me in Kingsman, I could come over and join you, yeah?”

Valentine’s eyes light up as he laughs. “No, while I got to admit you’re pretty badass, you’ve done what we needed you to do. Now, I could stand around here and give some explanation of my grand plan while we wait for your friends to show up, right?”

“Sounds good to me, bruv.”

“Sorry, my man, but it ain’t that kind of movie.”

Eggsy is staring at the barrel of Valentine’s gun before he even processes that one had been pulled. He feels the bullet before he hears the shot, white-hot pain searing into his left eye through his skull through his brain holy fuck it fucking hurts Harry Jesus fuck make…

He never feels the pavement when he hits it. 

—————

Harry settles in at his desk to watch the feed from Eggsy’s glasses, and because Merlin isn’t the only one who knows his way around a computer, also brings up the feeds from inside the plane, giving him the view from both the front and rear of the cabin. He watches as Eggsy comes into to view of the plane cameras, his glasses are only showing the black inside of the case they currently rest in, and his stomach curdles a little bit as he sees that Eggsy’s hand’s shake as he pours himself three fingers of whiskey. 

Harry listens as Eggsy speaks to Arthur and then begins memorizing his mission brief. He can read it through the glasses Eggsy had pulled out of the case and put on. He contents himself in the fact that it really does seem as cut and dried as Merlin said it was. Nowhere near the danger that he, Merlin, Lee, and James had been in on the previous Lancelot trials. While Eggsy sleeps Harry leaves the feed facing him up on his computer while he does his own research on this “church” Eggsy is being sent to. He also may spend time studying Eggsy’s face, relaxed and younger looking in sleep, and thinking about that disaster of a kiss back in the fitting room.

Once Eggsy is in the church, it is even worse than Harry had imagined. He watches the feed pan around the room, taking in the fervent parishioners parroting back the preacher's bile, watches it look down to Eggsy’s hand that is gripping his own thigh so tightly the knuckles are white. Harry breaks into the church’s CCTV. He moves the two windows side by side so that Eggsy’s glasses’ feed is on the right, while the full view of the church, from what looks to be the back left corner is on the left. He can read Eggsy’s displeasure in the rigid lines of the boy’s shoulders.

“Calm, Eggsy, stay calm,” he says to the empty room.

Eggsy’s voice startles him. _“Would you excuse me?”_ Harry hates that fake accent falling out of Eggsy’s mouth. He absolutely hates it.

“ _Where are you going?”_ The feed is taken up by a mousey woman’s face, the one who has been sitting next to him alternating between amens, racial slurs, and hallelujahs for the past thirty minutes. She makes no movement to let Eggsy pass. _“Hey, what’s your problem?”_

Eggsy’s accent slips in his frustration. _“I’m a former rent boy that enjoys letting older men fuck me up the arse while calling them Daddy. In fact, I am heading out the door to let your repressed husband do just that to me right now, so why don’t you stick that bible up your frigid cunt and twirl on it, yeah?”_

Harry barks out a laugh at the frigid cunt comment while simultaneously ignoring the thrill of arousal flaring up his spine at the Daddy part. That is definitely not something he needs to think about right now. No, not at fucking all.

He watches Eggsy walk to the back of the church, heading to the door, the woman following after him, screeching like a harpy. All around Eggsy parishioners are standing, watching both Eggsy and the screamer. Harry’s hackles rise, sensing danger through years of finely honed instinct. Phones start going off, a high-pitched thrum coming through Eggsy’s feed, harsh and loud, and it makes Harry’s skin crawl just to hear it.

“Walk, Eggsy, get out. Please.” His hands grip the arms of his chair as he leans forward, willing Eggsy to hear him.

Only Eggsy does not. He reaches into his jacket in a movement Harry knows so well from doing it a million times in his own life, and calmly blows the woman’s brains out of the back of her head. Harry can only watch in horror as the congregations turns on itself, like a starving animal eating its own legs. Eggsy smiles and looses himself straight into the fray.

Harry knows that all humans have a dark corner of their soul where they shove the hurt, the pain, and anger that builds up over each slight and insult, each shitty thing that happens, every terrible thing that they are forced to do to save their own, or someone else’s, skin. Everyone has that box where all of that goes, those demons they can never let out. After thirty years of being an agent, Harry knows more than most how those chains rattle in the dark of night. Eggsy’s box that he has kept all his rage in, rage at losing his dad, rage at his mum for not stopping the fists or the nights he had spent on Smith Street, rage at Dean for making him do all the things he had to do to take care of his family, rage at Harry for not loving him the way he should, that box so tightly kept and chained, had burst forth and it consumed his sweet boy from the inside out.

Eggsy is incandescent. He is a burning white-hot flame. He is absolutely _magnificent_ in his lethality. Harry, just for a moment, for a fraction of a heartbeat, is terribly envious of Eggsy being able to let all that out of him, before he is promptly horrified at even thinking such a thing.

Watching Eggsy is like watching a ballet with knives, he dances around the people who come at him to kill him, grabbing one-two-three as dance partners, his gun firing in a steady beat, their bodies as human shields, their arms dislocating from sockets as Eggsy twirls them away from him. Their necks broken as he climbs them like trees, his thighs twisting as he dismounts. He gives up his gun as soon as it runs out of bullets, using its useless parts to impale a man’s head, now improvising with whatever he can find to hand, incense braziers, candle holders, a knitting needle from his second kill. Bodies drop around him, macabre piles of blood and gore. One man gets his fingers in Eggsy’s mouth, trying to pull his lower jaw out and off, Eggsy simply closes his mouth, biting through skin, bone, and tendon, his thumbs popping out the man’s eyes even as he bites down. He spits the fingers out on the corpse and smiles.

Harry’s blood is ice. He cannot watch this. He cannot look away.

And then, as suddenly as it started, it is over. The signal is gone and Eggsy is standing, _thank the gods he is still standing_ , bloodied and alone. Bodies litter the floor, some still twitching in death throes, but none are left alive. Eggsy looks around, horror written across his face in blood and wet, sticky globs. He cleans his face and glasses off with his pocket square, dropping it on someone once he is done. He moves to the door.

Harry scrambles to bring up any feed that will show him the outside of the church. _Why is Arthur not speaking to the boy? What the fuck is going on?_ He brings up the feed just as Eggsy stumbles out to see Valentine and his crew waiting for him.

Harry sits dumbstruck as Valentine talks to him, watches Eggsy’s eyes dart around, looking for help that Harry knows that even if it is coming, it will never arrive on time.

A gun barrel takes up the majority of Eggsy’s feed, and Harry’s heart stops. Literally stops in his chest, so much so that he is sure he is having a heart attack at his desk. And in the space of that moment, between one heartbeat and the next, he watches the gun barrel flare into Eggsy’s face, hears the crack of the shot, and sees the glasses splinter while on the other feed he sees Eggsy’s head snap back, his body falling, instantly lifeless, to sprawl dead on the ground.

The bright blue of the Kentucky sky is spattered in red. The sound of knives and trainers on concrete fade as Eggsy’s body is left to bleed out.

Harry’s heart resumes it’s beating. He wishes it hadn’t.

—————

Harry slowly opens the door to the meeting room, completely numb. _Eggsy was dead. Another Unwin dead, because you have some sort of savior complex. You’re nothing but a cancer eating away at other people’s lives._

“Galahad,” Chester says, sounding almost sincerely grieved. “Please, sit.” Chester gestures to the seat to his right. The round table room has never looked more distasteful to him at this very moment. The former Arthurs impose judgment with their disapproving stares from their frames, the green walls give Chester’s already pasty skin a sickly pallor in the fading light, and everywhere that fucking brocade and velvet suffocating the last vestiges of life out of him. Eggsy is dead, but Harry is the ghost.

“I am terribly sorry to tell you this Harry…” Chester never, ever uses his given name. In fact, Harry cannot think of one time in the past thirty years that he has done so. So, rather than inducing trust like Chester had most likely intended it to do, it puts Harry on high alert. “As you know, the Second Final Task was given today, each recruit going on a simple reconnaissance mission. Both performed admirably, however, something happened during Eggsy’s mission that resulted in him being killed outside of the church he was sent to.”

Harry sits quietly for a moment, looking at his hands, painting a picture of a man in shock. Chester does not know that Harry knows _exactly_ what went on at that church and who put a bullet through his darling boy’s face, and that he knows that Chester knows all of this as well.

“I know that Eggsy was not one of us yet,” Chester tries for a grandfatherly smile but fails, and reaches for the decanter of Napoleonic brandy, “but I think this once, we can make an exception, eh, Harry?” Chester carefully pours the brandy for the two of them. “Could you carry this back to the cupboard? I’m afraid the leg is acting up again.” Harry fights against the instinctive reaction he has against turning his back on Chester, taking the route through the room that allows him to watch Chester through the mirrors and monitors set around the room. Chester makes a quick motion over the glasses.

“Did the boy tell you that I told him that I thought he might make as good as a spy as any of us? No? Well, I meant it. He did well at the end, he fought bravely. I think I would have been proud to knight him.”

Harry’s hands become a vise around the decanter at this pronouncement. He fancies he hears the crystal cracking under his hands. He thinks it would be easy to step up behind Chester, place his hands on either side of his head and squeeze much the same way. Would it be a slow cave from the pressure, much like the sound of obscenely expensive crystal cracking, or would it be a more pulpy sound, like a rotten peach ground underfoot? Harry finds that he truly wants to know.

But instead of walking up behind Chester and seeing which sound his skull will make while it was caving in, he walks back, takes his seat and raises his glass.

“To Eggsy, a better man than this organization deserved,” Harry says looking directly into Chester’s eyes and downs his glass. Chester immediately sets his down after taking merely a sip, not echoing Harry’s toast.

“Now, Harry, it’s time we talk about the future of Kingsman, if not the world.” Chester’s friendly demeanor slips away and he is pure business. He turns his head and points to the monitor hidden in the mirror to his left. The moment he turns is when Harry sees it, a small scar behind Chester’s right ear. Harry had thought that Chester had just hated Eggsy, but to know that he had signed over to Valentine, betrayed Kingsman, and actively led Eggsy to his death, was too much. Chips fall where they may, but Chester will not leave this room alive.

“Not long after we began investigating him, Valentine arranged a meeting with me in this very office, which I allowed, hoping, at the time, to find some sort of solution to the issue we were having with him.” Facts and figures begin playing out over the monitor. Harry skips his attention between Chester’s face and the monitor, his face schooled into an expression of weary attentiveness. “And Richmond explained to me the way the world was heading towards its own destruction, and how the only way we could save it was by starting anew.”

“Starting anew?” Harry asks, a small frisson of horror creeping it’s way up his spine, slowly, like a spider, each little foot just tapping a little higher than the one before.

“A culling if you will. The upper class, the best of us, will be hidden safely away, while the lower classes, the ones just living off our charity and good graces are simply disposed of.”

“How so?”

“The same way it happens every day, Harry, they will be disposed of through their own animal-like tendencies, but we won’t have to wait lifetimes for them to slowly pick each other off, one by one. It will simply be accomplished in minutes by a signal sent out through the sim cards Valentine gave out and all the street trash snapped up.” Chester smiles at this. “I know you have always had a soft spot for those people Harry, and I admire it, truly I do. However, even you must admit something needs to be done before they take over our world like lice. We will start fresh, with a new chance to build the world back to the way _we_ want it to be, the way it should have been, and I want you to be a part of this. We need men like you, nobility, leaders, ruthless enough to do what needs to be done. Join us Harry, and help us usher in a new era of prosperity.”

“And the rest of the knights? Merlin?”

“They, of course, will be offered the same proposal, in fact, the two knights who had joined mine and Richmond’s meeting have already pledged their loyalty to the plan. They too understand where this world is heading and that something must be done to protect our way of life. You don’t feel bad for calling the exterminator to the house when you have a pest infestation. This is no different. Soon, we who have been chosen to reboot society will converge in a safe spot while Valentine sets off the signal. We estimate it will take ten minutes at most for eighty percent of the population to wipe themselves out. The survivors will be used as our workers both for the cleanup and for the rebuilding process. Just think of how grateful they will be just to be alive, how happy they will be to live under our thumbs, docile and thanking us for the scraps they are thrown.”

“How are you so sure this will work? That the signal will induce such a frenzy. Have you tested it?

“Ah, well, yes we have. It went off in that church that Eggsy was sent to, and it worked even better than anticipated. Your little pleb wiped the entire place out by himself. I was almost sorry to see him go. A dog that vicious would be excellent on to have on a leash, bowing to your will. I could see the appeal he had for you in those moments. He made an excellent test subject.”

“Why Eggsy, though? He did nothing to you.”

“He was a perfect example of what we needed to be rid of, common gutter filth, who earned what little money he did make on his knees, always trying to get something from his betters. What better way to test the signal but on one of the very people we want it to work on? And he did beautifully, savage, animalistic, his true nature coming through. Surely you see that, Harry, what he was?”

“Arthur, just when I think you could not get any more foul, more pompous, and more of a big, steaming pile of excrement than you already are, you surprise me. I saw everything that happened at the church, the reaction those people, including Eggsy, had to that signal that went out over their phones, and I have known since the moment I walked in here that you had something to do with it, I just didn’t know how deep it ran, that not only you, but other knights, had gone over to the other side.

“I wouldn’t join you and Valentine if my life literally depended on it. Your classist, inbred notions of what is good and proper only exist while it serves you. If I were to exterminate the pests, I would most certainly do it the other way around, and make sure that you were the first one to go. So, no, I will not be joining you in your new world order.”

“So be it.” Chester holds up his pen, the same pen that Harry has used in countless missions, the one he showed Eggsy in the armory, the one that contains the poison that Harry suspects is now coursing through his body. “I thought you might react so, so I had some insurance in my back pocket just in case. Your brandy contained the poison that was formerly in my pen.”

“God, I knew it tasted even shittier than usual. I thought it was just the bad taste I get in my mouth from breathing the same air as you.”

“Listen Harry, and see reason, I will give you one more chance. Agree to join us Harry, or I click the activator.”

Harry leans forward, looking directly at Chester. “No, you listen, for I am only going to say this once. I would rather be with Eggsy, thank you.”

Chester clicks the pen and smiles as he waits for Harry to begin to convulse and foam at the mouth. Harry sits back, hooks one ankle over his knee, and scratches at it, blinking back at Chester calmly. He beings to speak, “You recall Chester, and I think since you have now made an attempt on my life and killed someone I hold most dear, that we can dispense with all the Arthur bullshit, yes? Good. You will recall that twenty years ago, the poison in his own pen killed our former Lamorak when his mark switched glasses with him. It was something that horrified new agents such as myself, being killed by something so random, falling on my own sword as it were.

“So I began researching ways to survive the various methods we have to discreetly kill a mark. One of the things I came across was the practice of Mithridatism, the method of ingesting just a little bit of poison each day as to build up an immunity to it. So that’s what I did, for twenty years I have been building up an immunity to our poisons, ensuring that while I cannot survive a bullet to the head,” his heart clenches, “I can most definitely survive a little bit of poison.”

Chester stares at him dumbfounded, his shock so great that he doesn’t even jump when in a flash Harry is out of his chair and standing behind him, the small knife he palmed from his shoe when he scratched his ankle pressing into Chester’s sagging neck. “And you know what you can’t survive Chester, and I can guarantee this, is me ripping your fucking neck open. This is for Eggsy.” And with that Harry slices across Chester’s neck drawing a thin, but deep red line across it, reveling in the blood that hits him on the cheek and arches across the desk. As soon as Chester slumps forward, Harry notices the scar once again and uses the knife to pry the chip out of his neck. Harry is not sure that Merlin can make any use out of it, but he is taking it. He glances down and sees Chester’s personal cell phone, and pockets that as well.

He brings out his pocket square and shakes it open, uses it to wipe the blood from his face, glasses and hands. He then drops it over Chester’s face, remembering Eggsy doing the same, and slips the chip in his pocket. He runs a hand through his hair and fixes his cuffs, putting himself to rights.

Time to find Merlin.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V-Day and it's aftermath, Part I.

 

Harry steps off the elevator, heading for Avalon, unsure of the welcome he’s about to receive. Roxanne surprises him, well Lancelot now, he supposes, by being the first to greet him by leveling a gun at him.

“Do not take another step, Galahad,” she says, finger tight around, but not yet pulling, the trigger. Her posture is perfect and she is already dressed in her bespoke suit. Her hair is neatly pulled back, but her eyes are red and puffy from crying.

“Lancelot,” Harry starts.

“That was your only warning.”

“Surely you do not think I am a threat?”

“Stand down, Lancelot,” Merlin’s brogue echoes in the hallway. “Harry is the last person we need to worry about.” Merlin walks towards both of them, his long legs eating up the distance quickly. “Harry, I have some, _Jesus_ ,” Merlin scrubs his hand over his face, “some bad news.”

Harry stands tall, firmly pulling every conceivable wall he has around him until he is no longer Harry but Galahad, gentleman spy extraordinaire, impenetrable and cold. He will be the one to say it, because if Merlin does, if his oldest friend looks at him with sadness in his eyes, Harry thinks he may break completely. “Eggsy is dead.” His voice does not crack, does not waver.

Merlin gapes at him for a moment and then Harry can see him remembering that he patched Eggsy’s feed into Harry’s office. That Harry heard it all, _saw_ it all.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Harry, I am so ve-“

“Time for that later, Merlin, thank you.”

“Wait a second, why do you have blood on you?”

He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out the chip he had dug out of Chester’s neck.

“Ah, that. I just slit Chester’s throat and pulled this out of his neck. Apparently, him and at least two more of our brethren have sided with Valentine. He tried to persuade me to join him right before he choked on his own blood. I have it all on my glasses if you would like to see it for yourself.” Harry smiles, a cold, dark glittering thing with way too many teeth. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lancelot clench her gun once more. He doesn’t blame her. “You will be happy to know, though, that our idea of Mithridatism worked beautifully. The sniveling prick tried to poison me with one of our own pens. Luckily all I felt was a mild cramp.”

Merlin gapes once more, Lancelot mimics him. “Arthur’s dead? Yes, I definitely think we need to see your feed.”

“Chester is dead, and since I am the most senior agent in residence, I am taking the mantle of Arthur until this mess is fixed. Issues?”

Merlin and Lancelot look at each other, look at Harry standing there in a blood-spattered bespoke suit, holding a bloody neck chip he just dug out of their former leader like a gorgon’s head, and then each other once more.

“None whatsoever. Long may you reign and all that.” Merlin waves one hand about. “You’ll excuse me if we skip all the formalities and ring kissing and whatnot. We apparently have bigger issues at this point.” Merlin taps at his tablet, quickly bringing up the feed from Harry’s glasses so they can watch it. Harry walks a little ways away, he is not sure he can hear the man’s voice without going back upstairs and eviscerating the body with his bare hands. On second thought…

“Well, as good as this intel is Harry, or Arthur,” Merlin interrupts his train of thought, “we are still missing one very important piece of it?”

“I know, where this ‘safe space’ might be. I was hoping you would have an idea.”

“Not a one, unfortunately. Perhaps I can triangulate a sig-“

Just then Chester’s phone starts buzzing. _V-day starts in 06:00:00. Get to a safe zone or fly to 66°58’30.0”N/61°43’04.8”E._

“Good God, I don’t know whether to admire their cocksureness or to pity their stupidity,” Merlin says, staring at the phone. “All right, I am giving us fifteen minutes to grab whatever we each think we may need for this. Meet me at the hangar, we will cobble together a plan once we are in the air.”

“Wait a moment, I’m Arthur.” Harry starts, disagreeable.

“Good, you know your designation, I’ll have a cookie for you on the plane. You now have fourteen minutes, Arthur.” Merlin turns on his heel and heads out, Roxanne close behind.

Harry goes back up to his rooms to grab a new suit and then back to his office for some of his personal weapons. Once he is through the door, however, he realizes his mistake. Lying on the leather couch, neatly folded, are the clothes Eggsy had been wearing before he had changed into his suit. Harry walks over to them slowly, reaching out and drawing trembling fingers over the track jacket he found absolutely appalling (loved) on the boy.

“You said you would be back, that you would be back and we could fix this. You thought you were not good enough for me, but the opposite is true, nothing I could ever do could make me deserving of someone as bright, beautiful, and as loyal as you. But I swear this Eggsy, you will be avenged, and if I fail at that, then I will be with you soon enough to ask for forgiveness in person.”

Harry picks up the jacket and brings it to his face, taking one deep lungful of Eggsy’s scent into his nose. “I do believe I love you, my sweet, darling boy. I think I may have loved you the minute you shot your mouth off outside of Holburn. I should have told you that. I should have…” a deep, bone-aching sob crawls out of his throat as his knees hit the carpet.

“You have five minutes, Arthur. Get your ass to the plane.”

Harry stands, gently folds the jacket up and places it with the rest of Eggsy’s clothes. He gathers his suit, his weapons, and his umbrella.

“On my way, Merlin.”

Merlin is a good enough friend that he doesn’t comment on Harry’s red-rimmed eyes when Harry boards the plane. Instead, he just hands him a whiskey and asks Roxanne to accompany him into the cockpit under the guise of showing her the controls. Harry knows it is just a way for Merlin to give him some space in which to compose himself, which Harry takes gratefully.

Once the plane is in the air under the watchful eye of autopilot, and Harry has changed into a fresh, bloodless suit, they both join him once more so they can start to formulate a plan. Harry switches to water at this point, ignoring Merlin’s raised brows. He has got to be sober for this, he owes Eggsy this much. After this is all put to bed, he looks forward to the bender he can already see himself going on. First vengeance, then mourning.

The plan is fairly simple when it comes right down to it. Get into Valentine’s safe house, find Valentine, and stop the signal from going out. Merlin had worked out that there had to be some sort of satellite system that would allow the signal to be transmitted over phones worldwide. A quick search of Valentine’s holdings confirmed that he did own eight of his own satellites and partial interest in a few more.

“Lancelot,” _He’s using code names,_ Harry muses, _Merlin is in pure handler mode_ , “will be going up to take out one of the satellites Valentine has. It will take him at least a couple of hours to re-route his signal and that will allow me to hack in. You will want to put on your Halo suit for this, lass.”

Roxy pales visibly, her throat working as she swallows. She nods once, gets up from her seat and heads to the back

“And how do you expect to get into the system, Merlin?” Harry asks, still sipping at his water and staring at it as if he could make it alcoholic by sheer force of will alone. He may understand he needs to be sober, but that does not mean he has to like it. At all. 

“That is where you come in, Arthur. You will go in under Chester’s invitation, here’s to hoping he didn’t have time to meet with anyone inside Valentine’s organization but Valentine himself, and take this flash drive,” he dangles one from his long fingers. “Find a computer and get me online, from there I can hack in and shut him down.” 

“It can’t be that simple, my friend.” Harry reaches out and takes the flash drive, tucking it into his pocket.

“Oh, I am almost positive it won’t be, but you know me, ever the bright and sunny optimist,” he says, smiling from the side of his mouth, and heading back into the cockpit. “I have to land in a few moments so we can drop Roxy off. I’ll leave you to it.”

 _Leave me to what,_ Harry thinks but doesn’t say. Leave him to sit here, in the quiet, nursing tepid tap water, replaying that moment when Eggsy was killed right before his eyes? He almost wishes he had never watched the feed, but then where would he, or even Merlin and Roxy, be at this moment? Sitting in the manor, believing that some horrible mishap had taken Eggsy away from him, and never knowing the man sitting at the head of the table was helping to orchestrate the death of them and millions of others. Never knowing that the man he had followed, despised, but followed, and even at one point, trusted completely, was the reason his darling boy was never coming home again.

He hurls the glass at the wall of the plane, belatedly realizing that had he been a few inches off in his aim, he most likely would have taken the whole plane down through a busted window, and waits for Merlin to come out and berate him.

He doesn’t. Merlin knows him too well to push when Harry is in this type of mood, all rage and no outlet. Well, no outlet as of yet, he hopes he will at least get to punch someone at the meeting point, if not kill Valentine outright.

Harry stays inside the plane as Merlin goes outside, in nothing but his damn pilot’s jacket, the man was a fucking furnace, to strap Roxanne into the apparatus that would take her into space. He watches as Merlin lays one hand on each of her shoulders and bends his knees to look her in the eyes. He can’t hear what is being said between them, but Roxanne looks slightly less green and more confident when Merlin finishes speaking. Her smile is tentative, but there nonetheless, and it only grows when Merlin smiles back and then presses one kiss firmly to the center of her forehead. He steps back, nods once, and then makes his way back onto the plane. Harry continues to watch as Roxanne begins to inflate the two large, bollocks-shaped balloons that will carry her into the atmosphere. He cannot help but admire her bravery.

“It seems we have found an exception to your preference for men, eh?” Harry says, the wry grin on his mouth not reaching his eyes 

“For fuck's sake, Harry. You know you can have an intimate friendship with someone and not be fucking them right? Or do you stick your cock into everyone you put your lips on?" 

Harry’s smile falters. _Not everyone, no._

“Well, Gregor, dear, what was all that about then? I saw you kiss the girl.”

“On her forehead, or did you forget basic anatomy?”

“No, but…”

“Jesus, the girl is fucking gay, Harry. She likes women. Something I am most decidedly not. Her and I become close over the candidacy trials because the lass figured out that Amelia was a plant, and after much wheedling by her, and her partner in crime, your boy,” Merlin looks to the side of Harry’s face, refusing to meet his eyes, “I helped them schedule a few clandestine chats to allow them to get to know each other. I care for the girl like she was my niece, not like a lover.” Merlin glowers at him, seemingly ready to defend Roxanne’s honor. Or his. Harry wasn’t sure which.

Harry looks down at his polished Oxfords. “Apologies.”

“None needed, I know you were just teasing. All of our tempers are a little bit off.”

“Indeed.” Harry turns away, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Merlin walks over to him, his hand coming to rest on Harry’s left shoulder, offering the same comfort Harry imagines he just offered Roxanne out there on the ice. The comfort he imagines her holding tight to as she climbs climbs climbs up into the air, her worst fears being faced and overcome.

“Harry, I am so very…” Merlin starts, his brogue soft in Harry’s ear.

Harry’s right hand comes from behind his back, reaching up to his shoulder, threading their fingers together. “I know, Gregor,” his voice rough, “but I am very much afraid that if you finish that sentence I will lose what strength I have that is currently keeping me moving forward.” He squeezes gently. “When this is all over, you can say those words to me. I will even let you hug me after we drink enough alcohol that such a display of affection does not embarrass the both of us. But for now, do shut up.” Harry turns his face towards him, his eyes wet. “Right now, we are going into wherever Valentine has holed himself up and we are going to stop him. And then, once we know for sure that everyone is safe, I am going to personally find him and I am going to kill him slowly, and painfully. I do hope you take no issue with that.”

“None what so fucking ever. Although, if I may, I’d like to request that you bring the fucker back to the manor so we can all have a bit of a go with him. I am sure Roxy could use the advanced torture techniques training.”

“You are an absolute credit to your role, Merlin, always looking for new ways to turn each experience into a teachable moment.”

Merlin gives one last squeeze to Harry’s hand. “Well, with those plans firmly in place, shall we?”

They spend about another hour in the air before setting a landing course for Valentine’s bunker. Harry sits next to Merlin in the cockpit, eyes scanning the landscape below for any visible site of a settlement. He sees nothing but snow, blinding white snow.

“Harry,” Merlin points, “there. My God.”

Harry follows Merlin's finger out onto the once below until he sees it. Camouflaged by being built directly into the mountain, using the snow and ice to hide it, is what looks to be a large bunker, and as the controls on the cockpit light up, it is apparently well armed, with missiles.

“Fuck.” Merlin breathes.

“Indeed.”

Once given permission to land, Harry steps off the plane and is greeted by a woman flanked by armed men. Mustering up the same swaggering, condescending attitude that has gotten him into everywhere else he was not supposed to be, he smiles, a bit disdainfully for good measure, and gives Chester’s name. She waves him through.

“This way, sir,” she says, inclining her head deferentially. “If your pilot would care to deplane as well…” she trails off.

“Ah, no, Mycroft will be staying with the plane for the duration. He’s not terribly good around other people. A great pilot, but a bit daft if I am being honest. Isn’t that right Mycroft?”

“If you say, sir,” Merlin replies, not even trying to look daft, rather just looking murderous.

Harry laughs to himself and follows the woman into the cavern.

After getting himself a proper martini, he circulates through the room, looking for some way to get the flash drive he has tucked snugly into his pocket in a computer so Merlin can get online. He is shocked to realize the sheer number of people he knows here, or knows of, being the more operative words. On the far right side of the room, he can see the Worthington’s, a family he grew up around as they had the estate whose lands bordered on his own family's, and next to them were the Smythe’s. He was sure, if his own parents were alive, they would be here as well, a fact that makes Harry happy that he cut them out of his life years ago. His father, also a Kingsman, shared Chester’s attitude towards Lee and when the man had told Harry that Lee did the organization a favor by throwing himself on that grenade, sacrificing himself for his “betters,” Harry had never spoken to them again. He had only found they had died when his cousin had mentioned it the last time they had run into each other in London, certainly no loss from Harry’s life.

Harry skims his eyes across the alcoves on the second floor and notices a man with a laptop. Excellent, Harry thinks. Everything is going according to plan.

“Society is dead, long live society.”

The man smiles up at him. Harry realizes with a start that it is the Swedish Prime Minister. “Amen to that, I’m Morten Lindström.”

Harry toasts him with his martini. “Chester King. How’d you get online?”

“Closed connection, preauthorized access onl…” his head hits the keyboard seconds after Harry’s dart hits him in the neck. Harry quickly shoves the PM out of the way and plugs in the flash drive.

“Your turn, Merlin.” Harry mutters, just loud enough for his glasses to pick up.

 _“Good work, Arthur. I’m in. Roxy, take the shot now, I need time to move through the system_. _”_

“Mr. Hart, sir, I am surprised to see you here,” a voice comes from Harry’s right.

_“Jesus, it’s that little fuck Charlie. This is the last thing we need. Get away from him.”_

“Ah, Charlie. I don’t see why you would be, I am nobility after all, certainly the type of person that would do well in helping to usher in the new age.”

Charlie looks at him skeptically. “Uncle Chester seemed to think that you would side with the plebs when the time came.”

“Yes, well, thankfully Arthur had a talk with me, explained what Mr. Valentine was trying to do, and why it needed to be done. I am happy to say I now see the error of my ways.”

“What happened to your filthy little rent boy then, back on the corner where he belongs?”

Harry will kill this little fucking bastard in front of him. He will reach out and tear the boy’s trachea out with his bare hands. He will pull his tongue through the gaping hole in his neck and let it dangle like a necktie. He will wrap the insufferable, pompous prick up in a bow made from his small intestine. He will…

… smile and reply, “Eggsy had the honor of being the first test subject for Mr. Valentine’s sim cards. He was pure poetry, dirty poetry, but poetry nonetheless.”

This seems to mollify Charlie because the fake smile he was sporting warms a few degrees.

“Mr. King?” Harry hears a woman calling. His heart descends to his stomach. “Mr. King…we have a question about your reservation.”

Charlie looks at him and then at the woman. “But he’s not… you fucker, you’re not here because you believe in the cause…” He turns to face the glass enclosure where Valentine and Gazelle are standing. “Valentine,” Charlie yells across the room, “we have a spy.”

“Shit,” Harry says with a sigh. He looks to his right where Charlie is standing, and then to his left where the woman in quickly approaching, still flanked by two armed guards. “Shit, bugger,” Harry mutters again as he looks down over the balcony. _This is going to hurt something awful tomorrow,_ he thinks, and then jumps.

The impact jars his knees just as he knew it would, a small spike of pain shooting through the right one, a memory of a mission-related injury in Bolivia fifteen years ago. It's good though, it grounds him for a minute, focuses him. He takes off from his landing, moving quickly through the crowd. No one reaches out to stop him. The rich never like to get involved if they don’t have to, something Harry has used that to his advantage more times than he can count.

He flies through the corridors, bullets flying from his gun, bullets impacting his suit, bodies lying in his wake like candy wrappers behind a toddler on Halloween. Every corner he turns leads him into more guards. 

_“Three coming up on your right, Arthur. You have one more corridor before you are back at the plane.”_

“Acknowledged. Be there in a moment then.” Harry turns the corner, gun extended and one two three the last of the guards between him and the plane are gone. He stands still for just a moment and looks down at his suit, it’s riddled with compressed bullets and he knows in his body will show the same pattern underneath the suit, only instead of pulverized metal, it will be shown in dark purples and jaundiced yellows. He plucks one bullet off of the suit, from right over his heart, and drops it in his suit pocket. He always keeps, when he can, one bullet from over his heart from particularly significant missions. He then tugs his jacket, sending the rest to the floor. He then runs to the plane, throwing himself through the door and into one of the seats. 

“Bad news, Harry, I can’t get into Valentine’s system far enough to stop the signal,” Merlin says, shouldering the shotgun he had covered Harry with while he boarded the plane.

Harry stops in mid-pour of his well-deserved glass of whiskey. “You have got to be kidding me, you couldn’t have told me this sooner?”

“I just realized it as you were coming in. The man has biometric security, and while he has lost a satellite, he is already hooking to another one in the vicinity of the rest. You have got to go back in and keep his hand from touching his desk. Once his hand touches it, the signal will transmit. I think you have about a ten minute window to get to him before he is back online.” 

Harry takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shit.” 

“Shite, indeed.”

Harry picks up the glass with the two fingers of whiskey in it. He was going for four, but needs must he supposes, and knocks it back. “I guess I should get back out there then, though how I am going to accomplish this is beyond me.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

“You confidence, as always, is inspiring, Merlin.”

Harry goes to the back of the plane, grabs two fresh guns, which he slips into the double holster at his waist, a lighter grenade in each pocket, and his Rainmaker. He has zero ideas, but he’s worked with less. He goes back to the front and stops where Merlin in standing next to the door and clasps his hand to Merlin’s right shoulder, Merlin clasps his left. They both know they either come out of this victorious or not at all. Not the first time for this anyway, they’d been here before. Harry squeezes once, runs down the stairs, and back into the corridor.

He runs into his first group of guards one turn in. He takes them out quickly and effectively, a few double taps to each one’s head and a broken neck for the straggler that comes in late. Hearing more boots stomping down the hall, he deploys the Rainmaker, set to kill, and moves forward, pulling the trigger as he goes. He thinks that this is going quite well despite the odds when something tears a hole through the Rainmaker’s fabric. Armor piercing rounds. If those can blow through his umbrella, they can definitely make it through his suit. He reaches for one of his grenades, primes it and tosses it. A low whooshing sound flows through the hall, bodies fly, and then he is alone. He grabs the armor-piercing gun, moves forward, he thinks, if he remembers right, he is mere minutes from the main room, minutes from Valentine.

 _“Valentine has a present for you, Arthur, multiple guards coming up behind you,”_ Merlin says through his glasses just as Harry turns a corner and sees a group in front of him. He presses himself into an alcove, his back against a steel door. It is more than a group, there have to be at least fifty men on each side of him.

“Merlin, I do believe I am fucked right now,” Harry says.

“ _As am I,_ ” Merlin responds, resignation heavy in his voice.

“Roxanne, I would like to ask a favor. Call Eggsy’s mother and tell her to lock herself away from her daughter and husband.” Harry looks down at the umbrella in his hand, thinks about the guns stopped to his back and wonders how many men he will be able to take with him before he dies. He will not be able to avenge Eggsy the way he planned but he takes a twisted sense of solace in the fact that, if the men in that church his parents forced him to attend as a child were right, he will be seeing Eggsy again very soon. In minutes actually, if his calculations are correct. He takes a deep breath and readies himself to step out. Then it hits him.

“Merlin, remember those implants that you said were no use to us, any chance you could turn them on?”

A half a minute later Harry watches as the head of every single guard around him explodes in a dizzying array of blood, brain matter, and colorful fireworks. A hat flies across his vision, a piece of skull still attached to it. Within seconds, he is the only one left standing.

 _“Oh my god, that is fucking spectacular!”_ Merlin crows.

“Merlin, you are, as ever, a genius. Bloody well done.”

A loud pounding erupts from the door in back of him, and Harry opens the small viewing door on it.

“Princess Tilde, how very nice to see you with your head still attached,” Harry says and inclines his head in a small bow.

The Princess blinks at him. “Get me out of here. Now.”

“Of course.” Harry begins to try the door when Valentine’s voice sounds throughout the corridor.

_“You stupid motherfucker, did you really think I would put one of those things in my own head? You killed all those innocent people. You, Mr. DeVere, or should I say, Galahad, didn’t stop anything.”_

“I am sorry Your Highness, but it looks like I have to go save the world. I will be back for you however, so you just, ah, sit tight, won’t you?”

She smiles at him, her eyes glinting. “If you save the world, we can do it in the asshole.”

Harry sputters. “Well, that’s a very generous offer, but I am afraid my tastes run the other way.” Harry can feel his face turning red. When was the last time he fucking blushed? “Now, if you will excuse me.”

“Fine, I’ll do you in the asshole then,” Tilde calls after him, laughing.

_“Arthur, the signal is starting, you have to get his hand off the desk now.”_

Harry runs through the corridors, empty save for headless bodies and heads to the main room. He comes through the door, gun raised and already firing at the glass separating him from Valentine and Gazelle. He sees Gazelle push Valentine down, effectively knocking his hand from the desk. 

_“You did it, the signal has stopped, Arthur."_

“I don’t think it's over, Merlin, I need a way up there and now.”

_“Keep shooting, I’ll find you a route.”_

Harry is reloading a fresh clip when he hears glass splintering above him. He looks up to see Gazelle flying straight at him like an archangel bent on death, the gun in her hand already firing at him. He raises his own gun, ready to unload the full clip into her when she raises her leg and slices the barrel off.

“We’re back up!” Valentine calls as fireworks and disco music erupts around them.

He and Gazelle look at each other once, and then she lunges, deftly moving away from each punch he tries to land on her.

_“Kill her already!”_

“Kick his geezer ass, Gazzy!” Valentine calls.

Harry fights like he has never fought before, adrenaline pumping through his veins. For every hit he scores, she seems to score two, the blades at the end of her legs flashing in the fireworks blazing around them. He throws plates at her, which she knocks away. They tackle each other, both of them falling to the floor, and she doesn’t even get up, just comes at him, spinning like a top, reminding him of that video of street dancing Eggsy had shown him once when they were eating lunch, only she is much deadlier. He jumps on a table, launching himself over her, landing on his shoulder and rolling upright.

_“The world is going to shite, Arthur. Take her out now!”_

He’s slowing down, he can feel it, the adrenalized energy that was keeping him going is quickly leaving him. If he doesn’t kill her in the next few minutes, she will kill him; he knows this for a fact.

She stands and launches herself at him one more time, he does the same using the last vestiges of energy to jump and meet her in the air. Her blades shine brightly, the left one heading straight for his chest. He leans back and clicks his heels together, deploying the poison blade in his left shoe. He kicks out, catching her in the arm.

It’s enough. He has won.

They land on opposite ends of the floor. Harry looks down, half expecting to see blood blooming across his shirtfront, but only sees that she has sliced his tie into two pieces. He drops it to the floor and looks up at her smirking face. He smiles back and nods slightly at the cut on her arm, the one that is rapidly turning green and black, the colors blooming up her arm and to the rest of her body. He sees the realization of what he has done move across her face and she tumbles to the floor.

“Gazelle! Gazelle??” Valentine calls.

 _“For fuck's sake, Arthur, KILL VALENTINE!”_ Merlin shouts through the glasses.

Harry runs to her body, ripping off one of her prosthesis, and extends the blade. He launches it towards Valentine hitting him square in the chest, and watches his body fall to the floor below.

_“Well done! The signal has stopped.”_

Harry hears Roxanne cheering in the background as he approaches Valentine’s body. He needs to see the man die, hear him choke on his own blood. He will want to replay this image, again and again, to soothe him every time he thinks of Eggsy rotting somewhere in Kentucky.

“You killed my Gazzy, man. And now you killed me. Shouldn’t you be saying some really bad pun right now?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t that type of movie,” Harry replies as he watches Valentine’s eyes fade, and then he walks away.

He returns to the plane, and he and Merlin head to pick Roxanne up from where she landed. Harry had expected to feel some measure of relief once he had killed Valentine and avenged Eggsy’s death, but instead he feels… nothing. No pride at a job well done, a mission accomplished, not perfectly no, he shudders to think about the loss of life that happened while the signal was going strong while he fought with Gazelle, but it was accomplished nonetheless. He is completely numb. Once Roxanne is on the plane, he congratulates her as he should and then promptly locks himself away in the loo with two bottles of whiskey. All he can see is fireworks, silver blades, and death. He loses consciousness an hour later, one bottle empty and the other on its side on the floor, the liquid seeping into his trousers.

——————

Merlin sits in his office, three sheets of paper in front of him. _Unaccounted for, KIA, V-Day._ He pours himself a whiskey, not a finger, not two, but fills the glass right to the fucking top. He wishes Harry was here with him to help him compile the names of those they lost, those that may have turned, and the saddest, the ones they cannot find. It’s been three days since they got back from Valentine’s bunker. Three days for them all to rest, recover and see who, if anyone, starts trickling through the doors.

Harry is, if Merlin knows him and god help him, after thirty years of friendship, he does, at the bottom of his own whisky cask by now, mourning a boy, no a man, anyone who died like Eggsy did was not a boy, that he loved like Merlin has seen him love no other. Before Harry always took what he wanted, the world and consequences be damned, but with Eggsy he actually put another’s best interests before his own, and for Harry Hart that was tantamount to sacrificing his own life.

Harry has been at the manor, every morning without fail, impeccably dressed as ever, but Merlin could smell the same air of alcohol on Harry that he could smell on himself, and Harry went home every night, alone, speaking to no one. Merlin was giving him one more day before he took matters into his own hands. He knew about mourning, but he also knew how dangerous Harry could be to himself when he was drunk and feeling guilty. He had personally hidden all of Harry’s guns from him for a week after Lee had died and simply sat with him, in his home, both of them drinking themselves sick and crying into each other’s shoulders. They had liked James, no bones about it, but Lee was different. Harry had seen the future in Lee, and Merlin, well Merlin, he had seen something more, something he could never have with a man with a wife and small child at home.

Best not to go down that road with a full bottle of drink in front of him.

Harry was feeling guilty over Eggsy now, the second Unwin to bring him to this state, but for vastly different reasons. They had not parted on good terms, although he has yet to find out exactly what happened, and Merlin thinks that makes it even worse. Not only does Harry have to nurse the deep cut of what might have been, but he also has to know that the last words that were said between them, in anger, were what Eggsy took to the grave.

Merlin takes a long drink and begins to write.

_KIA_

  1. _Eggsy Unwin - Candidate_



——————

The next morning finds Merlin standing in front of the old, oak door of Harry’s office. He is bringing Harry the lists he compiled the night before and he is not looking forward to it at all. He should have saved a finger or two from the whiskey for his morning tea.

He knocks.

“Come in.” Harry's voices calls out as clear as he has ever heard it. Merlin steps inside. To anyone who did not know Harry, nothing would appear amiss. His deep black suit with matching waistcoat and wool trousers are impeccable and show no crease. His thick brown hair, only beginning to gray at the temples, is in his normal hairstyle, pomaded to within an inch of its life, and his shoes shine in the low light. To someone who does know Harry, such as Merlin, the cracks in the fine china can be seen. 

Harry’s eyes are red and bloodshot. Merlin doesn’t think it’s from crying at this point. No, Merlin would bet his kilt that Harry was not sleeping, because while Harry doesn’t cry, what he does do is self-flagellate, and his favorite punishment is withholding sleep and food from himself. Merlin has had to tie him down and threaten an IV once. He will do it again if need be.

Harry’s hands shake, whether it’s from anxiety, lack of food or sleep, or the discreet uppers he is taking to keep him awake, Merlin isn’t sure.

“Merlin, yes, what can I do for you.” Harry sits back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap.

“I have the lists of our knights, Arthur. We need to look at them and see what we can do to rebuild the table.” Merlin sets the lists down, one by one, three grave markers on polished wood. Harry’s hands clench each other, going bloodless at the knuckles when he sees Eggsy’s name. “And, I have the reports regarding the loss of life due to Valentine’s signal.” 

He pushes them aside. “Just summarize them for me, please.” His eyes are closed.

“There was a ten percent loss of life worldwide due to the signal that Valentine sent out, of the ninety percent of the population that survived, another thirty percent were gravely wounded.” Harry’s face becomes deathly pale. “A lot of leaders around the world lost their heads when we activated those chips, but Kingsman branches across the world are helping to stabilize governments where they can. They were luckier than us in some ways, Valentine had never gotten into their branches, but they all sustained a large loss of agents, some more than half their table, when the signal went out. I am working on coordinating all the branches so that we may share the tasks of getting the world back together. MI6 and the CIA are also joining in the effort as well.”

“And us, how are we faring?” Harry opens his eyes, but trains them on his hands, refusing to look at Merlin. 

“Still sitting at the table are Percival, Lancelot, Bors, Pellinore, Lamorak, and Beaumains. We know for a fact that Balin, Bedivere, Dinadin, Ector, and Gareth are dead. Gareth and Ector killed each other in a safe house outside of Paris, we do not know if it was before, after, or during the signal. Since we leave our agents where they fall, it is unknown of either of them had a chip.

“As for the others, their bodies have been found, and left per protocol, or they sent last transmissions into us before they died. Unknown statuses at this point are Gwaine, Agravain, Cardoc, and Accolon. They have not been found nor have they reported in. I have a slight suspicion that they may be ones who went over to Arthur when he turned his coat. Our workers in Avalon were not touched since we have our own phones and they rarely leave the manor. However, I am conducting systematic reviews of everyone there to check for any traitors. I doubt that I will find one, that group is loyal to a fault, but it can’t hurt to be sure. 

“I see. And what are your proposals for filling some seats?” Harry is still looking at his hands.

“Two cohorts at a time, first seats filled are your previous code name, since you were named officially Arthur at the last meeting, and Ector’s. Pellinore, since he is getting a little long in the tooth, can help me run the trials.”

“Agreed. I will give everyone the next two weeks for finding their candidates. I want at least two from each of them, three to four would be optimum. We will get the new Galahad and Ector in, trained, and in six months, the next set will start.”

“Understood. I will let everyone know. Anything else?”

“Yes, by tomorrow afternoon I want you to make me a priority list of anything we know about Valentine, including the information you got from downloading his program from his network while we were in the bunker. That is the only surviving copy of the program, yes?”

“That we know of. There could be other associates go his that have some or all of it.”

“Then I want to know of anyone might be looking to continue his work in any shape or form. Once we know that then we will go through and decimate each and every one of them. Let everyone know this will be a very busy month for us, all of us.”

“Very good, Sir. Good morning.”

“Good morning, Merlin.” Harry pauses. “Oh, and get these papers out of my sight.” Merlin reaches down and takes the papers, shuffling them back together and placing them on his clipboard. Then, with a slight nod to Harry he heads towards the door

Merlin stops once he gets there. Squares his shoulders and turns back around. _Best to rip the plaster off in one go, eh Greggie?_ , as his mam used to say. Harry seems to have already forgotten he was in the room, his eyes staring out the window, his hands still clenched in his lap. Merlin’s hand reaches into the dark wool of his trouser pocket as he walks back to Harry’s desk.

“Forget something?” Harry looks up at him.

“Yes, this.” He holds his hand out, gold glinting within it.

“No,” Harry says, his voice a little more than a whisper. “No, I do not want it. You give it Michelle, or Daisy, you give it to someone who deserves it. Not me. I don’t want it.”

“Michelle and Daisy are gone, Harry,” Merlin tells him, his voice as matter as fact as he can make it.

Harry’s head drops into his hands. “They can’t be, I had Roxanne call and warn Michelle when we were in the bunker. Please, tell me I have not slaughtered the entire Unwin family.”

“Jesus, no.” Melin mentally smacks himself in the head, he hadn’t even thought of how that would sound when he had said it. “No, as soon as the chaos was over I went to see Michelle…“

“I should have been the one to go.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. You were, and still are, in no state when you are doing your own grieving Harry. I know you think the weight of the world is yours to bear alone, but that’s what I am here for, and Roxy, and Percival, to help you with the weight. We cared for him too, aye?”

Harry says nothing, just takes long shuddering breaths. His shoulders shake.

“I explained what happened as much as she could, I let Michelle know that Eggsy was taken during V-Day, and then I tried to give her the medal.”

“And?” Harry’s voice was thick.

“Well, it went about as well as your visit went with Michelle all those years ago. I can see where,” Merlin’s own throat closes up, he clears it, “where Eggsy got his strength from.”

Harry is sobbing audibly by now.

“Michelle called the number on the medal the next day and it was patched through to me.”

_“I don’t know what you fuckers are, and why you had to take away two of the men I loved most in this world, but you’re going to give me something back.”_

_“Anything,” Merlin answered, and meant it. Nothing would be too large compared to the debt they owed. “Anything.”_

_“I want out of here. I want a house somewhere, somewhere where I can raise Daisy away from all of this,” her voice broke but when she spoke again, it is carved in steel, “mess, where we can have normal lives. And I never want to see any of you people ever again.”_

_“Done, I’ll send someone to you with everything you need by the end of the week.”_

_“I won’t thank you. You don’t deserve it.”_

_“No.” Merlin’s head hung. “No, we do not.”_

“She asked for a house for her and Daisy. I took care of it. They are in Framlingham now, in a house I personally vetted with a savings account and trust fund set up from the pay from Eggsy’s training and death benefit. They are, and will continue to be, well taken care of. I will keep an eye on them.”

“And the step-father? Can we be assured he will not bother them?” Harry is still speaking to his hands.

“The one light in this whole fucking mess is that piece of shite didn’t make it through V-Day. He, and his gang, killed each other in the Black Prince during the signal. They are safe, from both him and us.”

Merlin walks around the desk and places his hands on Harry’s shoulders, forcing him to look up. Red, watery eyes meet his. Harry’s eyes, normally a rich, lovely brown, are flat, devoid of anything but pain. “This is not the medal we gave to them. This is one for you and you only.” Merlin opens one of Harry’s hands, laying a small gold K pin in Harry’s palm. It’s not the medal like the one given to Michelle either time. It is not pink and gold with a rope making the K, a candidate’s death medal. Instead, it is a K in the same clean golden lines they use as their insignias, about the size of two pence piece, a medal given out when a fully knighted agent dies. “Anything I can grant you, I will give you when you need it. No questions asked.” Harry crumples inward. Merlin drops to his knees on the carpet. Harry looks up at him.

“He would have made it Harry, you and I both know that, and he deserves to have that recognized.” He says, his voice now thick as well, looking into Harry’s eyes, his hands still grasping the other’s shoulders. Merlin’s tears flow down his face.

Harry’s hand reflexively closes around the medal, the pin on the back digging into his flesh. Merlin’s hand closes around his.

—————

“You will not be going, and that’s that.” Merlin slams his clipboard against the table. He gives Harry a scathing glare.

“I most certainly shall be going anywhere I damn well please, Merlin, and it pleases me greatly to take this mission. Need I remind who just who is in charge now?”

“Aye, apparently you need to be reminded of that yourself. As _Arthur_ you are needed here to run the fucking show as you are so fond of reminding me. Not one Arthur has ever done fieldwork.”

“No other Arthur has ever had a table decimated before him like the one I have. We need this mission handled, and we have no one else to do it, so, therefore, I will be doing it.”

“Oh, spectacular,” Merlin takes off his glasses and pinches the bridges of his nose. “When you get killed, who the fuck is the crown going to? Me, that’s who. And then who shall I make Merlin, Randall, the coffee boy? Jesus, Harry, have some fucking sense for once.”

“I have the highest success rate this organization has ever seen. I hardly doubt this mission is going to be the end of me.”

“Any mission can be the end of anyone, Harry, you know that.” Merlin’s eyes are sad when he looks at him, remembering how quickly Eggsy was taken from them.

Now it’s Harry’s turn to slam the table. “You don’t think I know that?” He runs his hand through his hair. “Fuck, Gregor, I can’t just,” his voice quieting to a whisper, “fuck, sit here…,” _with these memories_ remains unspoken. The past week of gathering intel has done Harry good, Merlin can admit that. The sour liquor smell is gone, and he’s steadier, more himself, but he still is not operating at full capacity. Maybe a mission would help, Merlin thinks, perhaps a compromise is in order.

“Fine, fine. Take Percival with you at least.” He throws his hands up. “Just as a precaution. He just got back from Croatia, but he can spare a few more hours.”

“Will that make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“I will, then. Far be it from me to make you unhappy.” Harry tries for a smile, but he thinks all that comes across is a grimace. “Let Percival know we will head out in an hour.”

Merlin leaves, still looking harried, but decided less so. Harry returns to Chester’s, no, his, desk to re-read the mission briefing once more. He still hates this fucking brocade, mahogany nightmare that is Arthur's office, but for now he will have to suffocate in it. They are down too many agents and have way too many messes to clean up following V-Day for Harry to burn the place to the ground, although the idea is tempting. He can’t even walk through the shop without remembering little moments with Eggsy, the grounds and offices where Harry watched Eggsy train is even worse.

 _Right, mission, one foot old man, one fucking foot._ Harry was right when he said it was going to be a simple one. Merlin had found out the name of some small fish runner for drugs in and around Eggsy’s old estate. Normally this would not even be a blip on Kingsman’s radar, they rarely dealt with drug trades, preferring to leave that to the police, but this one seemed to be the smallest fish in a pond where much bigger ones were circling, bigger ones who seemed to think that since the sim card plan didn’t work, taking out the lower classes through drugs laced with instantly fatal substances at best, biological weapons at worst, was a spiffing Plan B. Merlin had no clue who the bigger players were, so they decided they would grab the little guy and give him a shake and see what names rolled out onto the floor.

Percival, not being Harry, was of course, on time and waiting for him when he arrives at the bullet train to take them back into London.

“Arthur, sir.” Percival greets him as he walks up.

Harry fixes him with a gimlet stare. “Really, Alex?”

Percival smiles one his rare smiles. His demeanor, slicked back dark hair, London pale skin, and penchant for dressing in slim cut, black suits, has always given him the air of an undertaker. However, once you got to know him he was actually very funny in a dry, macabre sort of way, and Harry was pleased to know that he had made through V-Day unscathed. “Harry, then,” he inclines his head. “Shall we?” He motions for Harry to enter the train first.

As they make the thirty-minute trek to the shop they go over their game plan. According to their intel, their mark, one Roy Gaines, should be in his cookhouse, a small abandoned building on the outskirts of the estates. The plan is to get in, interrogate Roy, and get out. Easy, first-year agent stuff really.

Once they get to the building, the infrared scanners in their glasses confirm that Roy is indeed alone in the building. Seeing no need for subtlety, Percival kicks in the door and goes in, gun high with Harry right behind him.

Roy whirls around from his worktable holding two glass beakers in his hand. Harry notices that for a back alley cooker, Roy’s set up is surprisingly well-funded, all shiny chrome and glass apparatuses.

“The fuck?” Roy blurts, his eyes comically distorted from his safety glasses. Roy is young, early twenties if he’s a day. He is dressed in the normal uniform of the estates, track pants, snapback, and polo, although a little higher end than what you would normally see on boys his age. Drugs apparently pay something, Harry muses. “Who the fuck are you twats?” His accent makes Harry’s heart constrict.

“We are here to ask you a few questions, Mr. Gaines. Answer them to our liking and we are on our way. Refuse to answer and we will hurt you. Certainly you can see the best decision to make, yes?” Harry answers, smiling at him.

“I ain’t telling you shit about shit, grandad. You don’t look like no coppers I ever seen.”

“We are most certainly not ‘coppers.’ But that makes us much more dangerous because we can do whatever we want.” And with that Harry shoots his gun to the left side of Roy’s foot, close enough to allow Roy to feel it’s passing, but not actually hitting him. A kick of concrete flies up from the floor.

“Jesus fuck, mate! What the fuck is your problem?”

“I won’t have a problem if you answer my questions. Now, why don’t you be a good lad and put your glassware down on the table and take three steps to your right. Slowly, if you please. My friend here has a tendency to shoot first and ask questions after.” Harry motions with his gun. To his credit, Roy does exactly as he told, telegraphing every movement and moving to where he was directed.

“Good,” Harry continues. “Now, what can you tell us about who you are making these lovely illegal substances for?”

“I ain’t making ‘no illegal substances,’ bruv. I’m a chemistry major over at the local uni. Working on my homework, I am.” Roy smiles innocently.

“Oh, very commendable, but we both know that’s not true.” Harry flicks on the laser point on his gun, making a small red dot appear on the boy’s left kneecap. “Again, shall we? Who are you making the drugs for?”

“I told you, I ain’t-“

Three things happen simultaneously. Merlin shouts through the glasses, “ _Arthur, Percival, you guys have incoming_ ,” the doors behind them blow open, and three men come through them. All three are dressed in suits, although not quite bespoke Harry notices, sunglasses on and guns in hand. Two of them stand right behind Percival and Harry, a gun in each hand pointed at them both. Harry still has his gun pointed at Roy, while Percival has his trained on one of the men behind him.

The first man calmly walks in between Harry and Percival, the gun in his hand pointed directly at Roy’s head. Harry takes in this tableau, a young man staring down the barrel of a gun, and his vision begins to gray. He minutely shakes his head.

“Roy, you didn’t call to tell me you were having visitors.” The man with the gun says. “What have you told them?”

“Nothing, Mr. Cane. I weren’t going to tell them nothing.”

“Good boy. And you, who might you be?”

 _“Lancelot is on her way gentlemen, keep control of the situation until then. We can use these ones alive,”_ Merlin says through their glasses.

Harry’s tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of his mouth, so after a brief glance Percival answers. “Just an interested party, trying to see who is moving in our territory.”

“Hmm, is that so? Funny, I am positive there is no one else who can claim this territory but me.”

“Mr. Cane?”

“Hush now Roy, your betters are talking. Now, answer me, or I kill the boy.”

“What do we care about some little junkie?” Percival asks, his voice flippant but his eyes shrewd.

“I think you might care a little more than you let on, but I am sure you both will prove more useful than this one.” Cane pulls the trigger.

It melds together in Harry’s head and he is both standing in this building, smelling blood and cordite, while he is also in his office watching another young man’s blood arc out of his skull and his body slam into the pavement as he dies instantly. Guns go off behind him, deafening in their proximity. Harry turns towards Cane and fires convulsively, a silent _no_ falling out of his mouth. His vision whites out as he falls to his knees next to Eggsy and cradles the young man’s head, or what is left if it in his hands. Everything is wet, coppery, and slimy-soft in his hands.

“I am so sorry, my dear boy. I am so sorry. I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t save you. It should have been me. I am so sorry.” Over and over again he says this, a litany of heartbreak and grief. Eggsy’s face looks up at him, the one green eye that is left, glassy and blank. Hands reach out and grab him by the shoulders, pulling him away from the body. “No! No! No! No!” he roars, clutching at the cooling flesh in his arms. “He can’t be left alone, he can’t be. You let me stay with him. _You let me!_ ” Hands pull him back again and he lashes out, his fist hitting flesh.

 _“Fucking hell, put him out,”_ he hears right before everything goes dark.

——————

He awakes in Kingsman medical wearing nothing but a hospital gown and finding his arms strapped to the bed rails. Merlin is tapping away at his tablet in a chair next to the bed.

“Why, pray tell, am I tied to a bed with my bollocks hanging out, Merlin?”

“Well, some of the lads wanted to take pictures. They hadn’t ever seen something so dried up and tiny before. I think I heard someone mention walnuts.” Merlin deadpans. He puts his tablet down, and stands up, leaning over the bed. Lesser men would have shrunk back. Harry did not. Possibly because he couldn’t move. “Now, why don’t you tell me what in the fuck happened back there, hmm?”

“Could you untie me first?”

“No.”

Harry sighs and looks away, unable to meet Merlin’s eyes. “I may have, possibly, lost my shit so to speak.”

“So to speak? So to fucking speak?” Merlin straightens back up and begins pacing. “Harry, you were cradling the dead body of your mark, who was leaking blood and brain matter all over you by the way, to your chest, while crying over him, calling him _Eggsy_. When Percival tried to pull you off of him you punched him, knocking him completely out, he’s a little pissed about that by the way, and refused to be separated from the body until Roxy darted you.”

“It was just a stress reaction.”

“Bullshite, Harry, that’s bullshite and you know it.”

“I am perfectly fine…”

Merlin shakes him by the shoulder, roughly. “You are perfectly not fine!” Merlin glowers at him, takes a breath, and gathers himself. “Arthur, you are removed from all active fieldwork until you pass your psych evals, something I should have insisted on before you went out. I suggest, and by suggest, I mean order, you to make a standing appointment with Viviane, appointments you will attend unless you want to spend the rest of your days signing requisitions for loo paper.”

“You cannot do that.” Harry’s eyes blaze.

“No, I cannot, but Viviane can. As our therapist, she has the authority to pull anyone off the mission roster if she thinks that the agent in question is unfit for duty, and you are definitely un-fucking-fit.” Merlin heads to the door. “I think a little while longer in that bed will do you some good, allow you to really mull things over. I’ll send a nurse in for you in a few hours.”

“Merlin,” Harry starts as Merlin walks out the door. “Gregor!” The door shuts quietly leaving Harry alone.

“Fuck,” Harry says to his empty room.

—————

A few hours later Harry finds himself brimming with rage and in the shooting range to let off some steam. A nurse had come in a few hours later, under Merlin’s command he supposes, to let him out of his restraints. He had glowered at her and may have said some less than gentlemanly things, but in true Kingsman medical staff fashion, she merely laughed a few times at his more vehement statements and left. Their medical staff wouldn’t last two minutes if they didn’t know how to handle pissed off and unruly agents.

He logs himself in at the door, locking the range behind him. He was in no mood to banter with other agents. He sets his targets, gets his earmuffs on, and pulls out his gun to line up his shot.

His hands shake.

Harry closes his eyes and takes few deep breaths. Opens them. Sights again. No shaking. Good.

He pulls the trigger. 

And is promptly sick all over his shoes.

He sights again, ignoring the smell of his own vomit and the way it is surely ruining his favorite Oxfords. He pulls the trigger. Dry heaves. Pulls the trigger. Shakes. Pulls the trigger. Screams in frustration. Unloads the clip. Ends up on his knees, in his own sick, sobbing. All he can see behind his eyes are visions of the gun barrel in Eggsy’s glasses, death toll numbers across the world of all the people he did not save because he couldn’t kill Gazelle fast enough, all the people he killed when he told Merlin to activate those chips. Death surrounds him, death is in him, all of those people are _entirely his fault_. He can never, in the years he has left on this planet, atone for what he has wrought.

Someone disengages the lock on the door behind him, but Harry cannot even stop sobbing to care about how they will find him. Strong hands take the gun out of his, disengage the clip, check the chamber, and place it away from them on the floor. He feels his face being pulled against soft cashmere. Merlin, Harry thinks, and he knows it is safe to finally fall apart. Harry cries and cries, ugly wrenching sobs pulled from so deep inside him, they make him sick twice more. And through it all Merlin holds him, rocking him gently, face pushed into Harry’s hair, and speaking soft comforting words into his ear.

When he has finally calmed down enough to breathe normally, he disengages himself from Merlin and looks at his hands.

“I don’t think I need to do any fieldwork for the time being,” Harry admits.

Merlin huffs and small, sad laugh. “Aye, that you don’t.”

“I’ll make twice weekly appointments with Viviane.”

“Thank you.” Merlin is still softly rubbing his back.

“I don’t know if I am going to be ok, Gregor.”

“You will, Harry, you will be ok. I’ll make sure of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everyone who is leaving kudos, comments, and just plain reading. It is so appreciated. 
> 
> This chapter dealt with the first two weeks or so after V-Day and Harry's reaction. Part II will be the six months following V-Day from both Harry's and Eggsy's POV. I reworked how the chapters were going to be split up at the last minute, so if something slipped through my edits, please let me know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neither Harry or Eggsy cope well in the six months after V-Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case it isn't clear, Eggsy's portion of the story starts right after the church.

 

In the remaining weeks of the first month after V-Day, and after his horribly botched mission, Harry remains true to his word and dutifully goes to see Viviane twice a week, Monday and Thursday afternoons at half one. The visits are perfunctory in nature. She tries to get him to talk about Eggsy, his drinking, and the mission. He stares blandly at her while playing a game with himself: _How Many Item’s in this Room can be Used as Murder Weapons?_ The answer is astonishing both in the number and his own creativity.

Harry does not allow his grief to affect his work. Much. He stays mostly, if at all possible, within the confines of his own office. Much of the manor, and the shop itself, hold too many memories for him. The grounds remind him of watching Eggsy running the obstacle course in order to show Roxanne his “sick fucking parkour skillz” ( _“That's with a ‘Z,’ Haz, like your name.”_ ). The shop reminds him, of course, of the last time they saw each other, the words that were said. On and on and on. Blessedly, Arthur’s office, now his, is devoid of any memories of Eggsy, and therefore, is safe as long as he keeps busy, and with so few agents on the ground and so much shit up in the air, he is busier than he could ever hope to be.

Harry brings JB home. Normally candidate’s dogs would either go to the candidate’s family, to foster care, or are given to a staff member if they so desired. However, JB is one of the last pieces of Eggsy he has, and he will not give him up, even if the rotund little creature chews on Harry’s favorite slippers and pisses on the floor to spite him. He never, ever scolds him. He figures JB is going through his own mourning right now.

Despite Viviane’s insistence, Harry cannot yet bring himself to visit Eggsy’s grave. He doesn’t need to see the gravestone sitting on top of a grave filled with nothing but an empty coffin to remind him that Eggsy is dead. He is reminded of that with every breath he takes. Instead, he does his penance by obsessively re-watching each and every snippet of video he has of Eggsy, including the Church. Especially the Church. He needs to remember.

Harry contemplates his own gun a little more often than he would like. Well, _a lot_ more often. He wonders if knowing that he is one small, very quick, unchangeable decision away from being reunited with Eggsy is a blessing or a curse.

Harry omits that fact from his sessions with Viviane. He doesn’t have to tell Merlin.

One night when the video loop in his head replays Eggsy’s head snapping back from Valentine’s bullet on repeat, to the point that Harry _cannot fucking take it one more second_ , he opens his bedside table drawer to find a note taped to his gun with two phone numbers written on it in Merlin's handwriting. _Please Harry, if you feel the need to use this, call one, or both of us first. Just give us five minutes before you do anything else._ He doesn’t call the numbers, though he keeps the note where it is, leaving it as a talisman against the darkness in his head. The next morning he goes out of his way to give Percival’s and Merlin’s shoulders a meaningful squeeze after the meeting. He knows they know.

Harry drinks himself into a stumbling, slurring, drunken stupor every night, which when he considers his frankly horrifically high alcohol tolerance, frightens him just a little on his clearer moments. Most nights become a black hole in his memory within an hour of him arriving home. Somehow he remains in control of his facilities enough to take care of JB, shovel some sort of sustenance into his mouth even though everything tastes like the worst sort of slop, and get himself to bed every night without falling down the stairs and breaking something. Each morning he can trace his movements through the house as he cleans up, and the growing state of his inebriation, by the number of discarded glasses, and then just bottles. He invariably makes the same trek every night. It starts in the kitchen and moves through the house ending in his study, where two used martini glasses sit, the alcohol in them long since evaporated leaving a sticky sludge behind, or into his guest bedroom where the bed is unmade and Eggsy’s clothes still sit on it in the same place he put them after Eggsy died. Once he found the jacket laid over the pillow with an indentation of his head in it. 

He refuses make the bed or wash the martini glasses. Or move the jacket.

In the second month after V-Day, Harry calls the numbers taped to his gun one night when he decides he should at least try to make it through the night without pickling himself. Merlin is there in five minutes, Percival in eight. The only thing more frightening than his realization that tonight might have been his last is the look on his oldest friend’s face when he realizes the same thing. The three of them sit and drink together, sobriety be damned, at first in silence, and then as the bottles empty, they begin reminiscing on days, and agents, past. Percival talks about James with a smile instead of tears. Merlin admits he was just a little bit in love with Lee. Harry listens, not willing to talk about Eggsy yet, but is grateful for the two men in front of him. He doesn’t need to look the next morning, when he wakes in his bed in a clean house, to know that his guns in his house are gone.

In the third month after V-Day, Harry, after a session arguing with Viviane, finally visits Eggsy’s grave. 

“Hello, Eggsy.” Harry says, staring blearily down at the tombstone. A red and a dark pink rose sit twined together on top of it where Harry had placed them when he walked up. He sits down on the grass, not caring about the state of his trousers once he stands up. The sunlight, odd for this time of year in London, glints off of the gold K pinned to his lapel. He takes a deep breath. “My therapist, Viviane, you never met her while you were in training, suggested that coming here to speak to you may be beneficial in getting me through the grieving process. Codswallop I say, but then who listens to me?”

The ground is cold beneath Harry, and for a moment he is thankful that Eggsy isn’t in the ground under him, because thinking about Eggsy moldering away in this piece of cold ground makes him feel slightly sick, and because wherever Eggsy’s body ended up over there in the States, it has to be warmer there than here.

He is crying softly, his handkerchief twisted in his hands.

“I miss you so much. It’s so hard for me to grasp the fact that you are well and truly gone. It feels like you're still somewhere in the manor training, and that any moment you’ll come walking into my office, without knocking, of course. I swear teaching you manners is…” his voice breaks, “was… the most challenging task of my life. Though I promise I never minded your lack of them, though, dear heart. Instead, I found it most refreshing.

“JB is missing you as well, he can barely bring himself to eat more than three biscuits a day.” Harry moves up onto his knees, presses a kiss to the tombstone, and leans his forehead against it, breathing deeply for a moment. “I’ll be back soon, Eggsy. Don’t go anywhere. Unless, of course, you would like to come home.”

By the fourth month after V-Day, Harry isn’t drinking every night anymore. He, however, still drinks more than he should.

Harry decides not to tell Merlin about the letter he receives one morning. The card stock it is printed on is thick, colored cream white, with a faint, raised gilding on the edges. _The King is dead. How long will the new King live to reign?_ is written a deep crimson ink. Harry lays it on the side of his desk while he sits, drinking his tea, Irish this morning, and contemplates it. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he, or any Arthur for that matter, has been threatened. No, for right now, he will keep quiet about it. He will wait. He will watch.

In the fifth month after V-Day, Harry asks for his guns back. Merlin gives them to him. His hands no longer shake when he re-certifies on the shooting range, Merlin watching him from the side. He no longer worries about using the gun on himself. Merlin’s relief is palpable.

Harry tries to enforce a self-imposed drinking limit. He calls the numbers now when he feels like the bottle will be calling out to him more than the gun once did. They always come. His drinking, while never within socially acceptable limits, returns to pre-V-Day proportions.

Harry still neglects to tell Merlin about the letters that continue to arrive, once or twice a month, each varying in tone, but all appearing on his desk, in that same creamy card stock, and all making vague but clear allusions to ending his life. He simply puts them in a drawer, bound together, and ignores them. Merlin has enough on his plate right now. They all do. And, if Harry is being honest with himself, he would relish someone with ties to Valentine attempting to get to him. He could do with the exercise.

In the sixth month after V-Day, Harry, finally, washes the martini glasses and the sheets from the guest. He re-makes the bed and moves Eggsy’s clothes onto hangers in his own closet. He is not well. But he is better.

—————

Eggsy wakes up in a rage. He is struggling against what ties him to the bed in this bright white room before he is even fully awake. It is not as all consuming as what he felt in the church, it’s a little muffled somehow, but it is still there, crawling under his skin, filling him with the urge to hurt someone, anyone. He can think, but just barely. Outside the room he hears screaming, crashes, gunfire. He longs to be in the middle of it. There is a rapid beeping sound to his right that only infuriates him further. He looks around the room, searching for anything he can use to free himself and then use as a weapon. He’ll use his teeth if he fucking has to. His eyes land on a man a few feet away from him. He’s wearing a suit and has a gun pointed at the door, which is barred by a pole.

“You fucking let me out of this, you fuck. I’ll fucking kill you for this.” 

The man glances at him and then goes back to staring at the door. The gun never falters. 

“You hear me? Let me out. I swear to god, I will rip out your fucking throat with my bare hands.”

The man sighs, turns bodily, and looks over at Eggsy. He calmly raises his right wrist and shoots a dart out of his watch.

_Fucking Kingsman_ , Eggsy thinks as he feels it pierce his neck. _Pricks._

—————

Eggsy comes to again. This time there is no broken glass rolling about beneath his skin, no restraints on his wrists and ankles, just the same blond man in a chair, only now at the right side of his bed, slender ankle crossed over his knee, in a simple gray, single-breasted, houndstooth suit. The man’s longish hair is pulled back neatly into a small ponytail. He is reading a newspaper. He vaguely reminds Eggsy of some actor, but Eggsy will be damned if he can place the name right now.

His head is _killing_ him. He reaches a hand up to where he remembers a bullet slamming through it, expecting to find a hole, maybe even his brain leaking out of it. With how much pain he is in, it wouldn’t surprise him. The man next to him looks up at the movement and watches him, but says nothing. His hand is shaking. His other one is too, now that he is aware of it. Not bad, but a slight and constant tremor seems to be running through them. He tries to steady them. He can’t.

When his hand touches his temple, he is thankful to find that his skull is intact. All he can feel is a raised edge of stitches from a deep gash that winds itself from his eye socket into his hairline, and the scrub brush bristle of his hair where it had been shaved away. He gingerly runs his hand over the sutures once more. It is not just one line of stitching, but multiple ones branching out of the main line, with multiple cuts, too small for stitching gathered around it like a cluster. He closes his right eye. He can see nothing but light. He’s half-blind. _Jesus._

“Who the fuck are you, mate, and where are we?” Eggsy croaks at him. “Fuck me, is there any water?”

The other man folds his newspaper and pours Eggsy a glass of water, placing a straw in it.

“Slowly, don’t choke yourself,” the man says in a deep, abrasive voice that has a vaguely Irish flavor to it. “We, for all our fucking sins, are still in Glade, Kentucky, and I am Peter, codename Gwaine.”

“Oh, thank fuck, I thought you lot had left me here to rot. How long have I been out?”

“Total? About five days. I was about to shock you with my ring to wake you up if you didn’t open your eyes soon. Or shock myself to put me out of my misery. I hadn’t decided which yet.”

“Right. Have you spoken to any of the doctors?”

“Despite the fact I carted your bleeding arse in here, they won’t tell me a fucking thing. I had to threaten one of the doctors when they tried to remove me from the room. Honestly, I think in the wake of what is being called ‘V-Day,’” Eggsy gives Gwaine a questioning look, but he doesn’t seem inclined to explain what the hell “V-Day” might be at this point, “they just don’t have the time to care. Luckily, enough time in Kingsman medical has taught me how to read a hospital chart. To answer your question, it seems that your left eye is thought to be permanently blind. The bullet, while kept from going through your skull from the bulletproof glasses, shattered those glasses and pushed the shards into your eye, it then tracked along the edge of your skull, leaving a slight dip in the bone.” Eggsy reaches his hand up once more, but can’t feel anything different because of the swelling. “There was some swelling of the brain from how hard you hit the ground, which explains the hand tremors, cerebral damage and all, but that seems to be the extent of it.”

“I guess that knocks me out of the running for Lancelot then,” Eggsy shrugs trying to feign nonchalance, and winces when the movement jostles his head. He reaches over and kicks the morphine drip up a notch. After all this, he can’t even be an agent anymore. He’s lost his eye, and his fucking hands, and the best chance some shite kid from the estates ever had of getting out. _Fuck._ Maybe he can talk to Harry or Merlin and they can find some place in Kingsman for him. He can’t go back to what he was, who he was, before Harry pulled him out of Holburn. _He cannot._ He looks down at his trembling hands and hopes he doesn’t sound as dejected as he feels. “Right, well they sent you for me at least, so when do we go home?”

“I don’t think we can go home, Eggsy,” Gwaine says, a sad smile on his face.

“Why not? Why else would they have sent you then? Even if I completely fucked my chance for Lancelot, I can’t believe Harry, or even that cunt Chester, would just leave me in the States to rot.”

“They didn’t send me, I was already over here. I was your pilot.”

“Ok then, let’s get a message to someone. Call Harry or Merlin, they will come for us as soon as they know we are ok. That _I’m_ ok.”

“Eggsy, it’s been five fucking days since the church. No one is coming because they all think you are dead. In fact, they are counting on it.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” Eggsy asks, dread making a home in his stomach.

Gwaine sits back in his chair, re-crossing his legs. He steeples his hands and gives Eggsy a pitying expression. “Haven’t you wondered why someone with your background was even let into the trials in the first place, much less making it to the final two?”

“I made it because I am good, bruv, no matter where the fuck I grew up,” Eggsy retorts with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Gwaine snorts. “You were _allowed_ to get this far, your path was eased for you by everyone around you working in tangent to remove those candidates that stood in your way. It was always going to come down to you and one other candidate, the one the Table had already chosen for Lancelot. It was never going to be you.”

“Then what the fuck was I for then?”

“For this of course,” Gwaine gestures to the hospital and his body on the bed. “Valentine, you remember him? I believe you met up with him in the shop before the dog test? He had come up with a plan involving those sim cards that he gave out for free. At a specified time he would activate a signal that would be transmitted through those cards, the same one that caused you to kill everyone at the church, which would affect everyone in range of it. Meanwhile, Valentine’s chosen fucking few would all be at a safe house that was close by, or in Valentine’s own personal safe house if they were very lucky. There they would wait out the signal, while those affected would kill each other off, reducing the world’s population, and leaving Valentine and his friends in charge.

“Kingsman knew about Valentine and his plan since the night Galahad had dinner with him at Valentine’s house. It was there Galahad was recruited to his side, then Arthur, Merlin, and the rest followed. After that the Table voted to keep you in till the final two, and decided that you would be sent here, as the very first test subject for the signal. You were perfect because you are exactly the type of person they wanted the signal to work on, low income, aggressive, and easily manipulated.” Eggsy opens his mouth in offense and Gwaine simply raises one of his big hands, silencing him. “If you made it out, Valentine would dispose of you while the rest of Kingsman scurried off to the safe house to wait out the signal.”

“Bullshite, they can’t have known I would make it this far, that I would shoot my dog.”

“Really Eggsy? Ask yourself why you shot the dog. Did Harry say anything to you to give you some sort of inkling that something was coming? Did he play on your feelings only to push you away when you tried to act on them? I suppose playing at feelings for the ‘pleb,’” Gwaine makes air quotes here, “was one thing, but actually fucking you was another.”

Eggsy opened his mouth to deny it, but he couldn’t. Harry had said something, hadn’t he? He had made sure that Eggsy had trusted him implicitly, and through him, trusted Kingsman implicitly, by the time he had walked into the final test. And then the whole thing in the fitting room before he left… Jesus fuck, Eggsy thought he might be sick. Scratch that, he was going to be sick.

He ends up retching over a basin while Gwaine looks on, nonplussed. Once he rights himself and cleans his mouth out with some water he regards Gwaine again.

“How the fuck do you know all that?”

“I’ve been watching Galahad since this whole thing began, since he put himself and Kingsman into Valentine’s back pocket. I played along to see how far they would take it. I wanted to protect you as soon as I figured out you were going to be the sacrificial lamb. Don’t get me wrong, I have no feelings one way or another for you personally, but I didn’t sign up to murder innocents.”

“And why are you here then? Babysitting the dirty pleb out of the goodness of your heart?”

“They burned me when I refused to leave you for dead and come home. I thought that possibly we could work together, make our way back to London and show those arseholes that they don’t get to choose who lives and who dies like they are God. Would you like that Eggsy? To get them back for what they have taken from you?”

Eggsy lay in the bed, his mind swimming with everything Gwaine had just told him. Part of him didn’t want to believe it, but he also couldn’t _not_ believe it either. He had thought from the beginning that the whole thing had seemed too good to be true, and he was right. Even better was the thought that Harry, gorgeous gun-smoke and chocolate Harry, would ever want to sully his hands with gutter filth like him.

He needed time to think, and he couldn’t do it with Gwaine looming about the room.

“I don’t know bruv, let me think about all this, yeah? You dropped quite the fucking bomb on me.”

“I know this must be a shock.” Gwaine stands. “Listen, I have to do some traveling and find some associates who can help us get back into England, but I will be back in two weeks. I’ll leave you this.” He places a burner phone on the table next to Eggsy’s bed. “Keep it with you, I will call you on it as soon as I get back. And if you see any of the Kingsman, do not engage with them. Call me immediately.”

“Sure, yeah, I will. Hey, wait a mo’. Why the fuck did you dart me? I remember that.”

“Apparently, Valentine succeeded in starting the signal, hence V-Day, once for about two minutes, and then again for about four. You came to in the second wave. I had barricaded us in here, even though once the signal started, everyone seemed to forget we existed. I was worried that your big mouth would draw some attention to us, so I darted you to shut you the fuck up before anyone out there decided to come after us as well. It was the only way I could accomplish my goal without leaving the door.”

“Yeah, thanks for that then, I guess,” Eggsy says.

“Remember what I said, though, call me if you see anyone that might be Kingsman, and hide. I don’t think they are coming for you, but if they find out you’re alive, or me for that matter, they will come make sure we keep what we know quiet. Deathly quiet, if you understand me.”

“I understand you.”

“Good. I’ll be in touch soon.”

Soon after Gwaine leaves, Eggsy hauls himself out of bed, and using the IV pole to steady his legs, he hobbles over to the small bathroom attached to his room. He doesn’t want to look in the mirror, but he has to know if he looks as bad as he thinks he does.

He does. Actually he looks worse.

The left side of his hair from about two inches above his ear, and about four inches back is completely shaved away. He looks at his face. He was never vain, but he knows he was a good-looking bloke. Now, though, he’s not so sure he will ever feel good looking again. A deep gash, purple and black with bruising and sutures, runs from his temple all the way above his ear. It’s jagged, with smaller cuts, most likely from the glass shattering and boring into his skin, radiate out from it. Even more startling though is his left eye, it’s open and it still moves when he looks around, but it is completely white, with the fastest of color delineation to show where the iris and pupil had been. He closes his right eye again, like he did earlier. Still all he sees is light, and darkness when he turns the light off, but no movement.

He slumps forward, hands grabbing on to the sink to keep him upright. He breathes in and out through his nose. He will not allow himself to break down in a room where anyone can walk in and see him crying with his arse hanging out the back of a hospital gown. He does have some dignity left. 

He heads back over to the bed, leaning on the IV the entire way. Once he is back in, he reattaches the morphine drip and kicks it up. He will deal with this, all of this, from his face, to Harry, to Gwaine, to Kingsman, later. Right now he just wants to forget the past six months ever happened.

—————

Gwaine said he will be back in two weeks, and Eggsy doesn’t know if he wants to be here when he returns. He spends time each day walking around his room, over and over again, circling the room, and then, as he can, doing simple body weight exercises to get his strength back. He finds himself hoping, a little less each day, that Gwaine was wrong and that Harry, or Roxy, or even dour-faced Merlin will come through his door, smiling with relief that they had found him. That he was alive. They would take him home and he would, even with his shaking hands and blind eye, would be a part of Kingsman. He cries himself to sleep the first two nights it doesn’t happen. The third night, he just stares stonily at the ceiling. By the fifth, he has almost convinced himself he doesn’t care. Evidently, no one else does.

Within a week, he has weaned himself off the morphine and the ache in his body from his time at the church has started to fade.

And as he circles his room, does sit ups, push ups, and squats, his thoughts also circle themselves, thinking about everything that has happened over the past few months, everything he saw with his own eyes, and everything Gwaine told him, weighing them against each other. It doesn’t balance out, not even close, but he’s fucked if he knows on whose side the scale tips in favor of.

He doesn’t want to believe that everything he thought he felt pulsing between he and Harry was just some play to win his trust, to make him pliable and easily manipulated. Harry could not have faked that, could he?

_What are you thinking?_ Eggsy thinks to himself, _of course Harry could._ _He’s a fucking spy._ He has seduced and conned God only knows how many people in his career as Galahad to get them to do what he wants, say what he wants, and Eggsy, with all his bright-eyed, naive hope was probably one of the easiest mark he ever had. Eggsy, so eager to please, so thirsty for any scrap of praise or love from anyone after living with Dean, practically gave himself over to Harry on a silver platter. The man could have told Eggsy to jump off a bridge and he would have, trusting that he would survive because Harry would make sure of it. And as for the matter of Harry just picking out some chav to propose as an agent, that also seems unlikely, no matter if his dad was a proposal as well. Eggsy has to wonder if his dad wasn’t some botched experiment as well and they just decided to carry on the tradition once Valentine came on the scene.

None of it makes any fucking sense.

On the other hand, something about Gwaine doesn’t sit right with Eggsy either, and living with Dean, Kingsman training aside, had taught him how to read people quickly. In a house where you were literally one word away from having the shite kicked out of you, you had to be able to scent mood changes and body language like a fucking fox on the hunt, and Gwaine smelled bad. He can’t, for the life of him, figure out how Gwaine could have known what happened in the fitting room before he left. The only person in the shop was Micah, the half-deaf shop clerk, a retired agent, and Eggsy hoped to hell that Kingsman didn’t bug their fucking fitting rooms. Something is definitely off, but he has to admit, it could just be the hope that Harry isn’t the prick Gwaine had made him out to be. That what Eggsy had felt, and was pretty sure Harry had felt too, wasn’t just some ploy to lead Eggsy to his death.

His head fucking aches. He desperately wants to use that morphine that sits next to his bed. The doctors that shamble in, bruised eyes and tired mouths, tell him it is too early for him to be off of pain medication, that there is still a lot of healing going on in his head, but they are too tired and stretched far too thin to fight with him. Instead, they leave pain relievers on the bedside table for him and, in one memorable discussion, tell him it’s his fucking life, and if he wants to suffer, so be it.

He swallows two of the pills. He moves on to lunges. Gwaine will be back in four days now. Eggsy will be gone in two.

—————

On the morning he is ready to leave he informs the doctor who comes in on her morning rotation that the room will be free for someone else. He has contacted his family and they are coming to get him. The doctor tries halfheartedly to get him to stay just a few more days so they can continue to monitor the headaches he has been getting, but Eggsy doesn’t want to risk still being there when Gwaine gets back.

In the end, she gives him yet another a bottle of painkillers and tells him to sign out at the nurse's station. Eggsy realizes that in the absolute chaos of V-Day no one had ever got his name or contact information, not that he has any to give to them. He assures her he will. As soon as she leaves, he goes about gathering the few things he has managed to scrounge for himself over the past week during quick forays out into the hospital floor at night. A pair of scrubs he pulled out of the laundry, a jacket and snapback he bought off a nurse with a little of the money left in his wallet, his watch, and his Oxfords. He really hopes no one notices that his shoes are not exactly the type that should be worn with hospital scrubs, but he is ready to run if need be. He leaves the phone in the hospital, its insides torn out and sitting in the toilet bowl. If he decides Gwaine was right later, he may regret it, but he doubts it.

_When trying to move through an area where you really have no right to be, confidence is the best disguise you can ask for. Just act like you have every right to be exactly where you are, and everyone around you will believe it,_ Harry had once told him.

Eggsy shrugs on the clothes, pulls the hat down over his damaged eye, and grabs his chart off the end of the bed. He moves quickly through the hall, weaving around doctors and nurses, periodically checking the chart and moving forward until he is walking straight out the door and into the Kentucky air.

His first problem, he decides, is that he has very little money, but he can solve that easily enough. The hospital is in a decent sized town, so it is nothing for him to lift a few wallets until he has enough cash to get him some food and a hotel room for the night. He picks at the fast food he bought, taking solace that American fast food was even shittier than the food back home. Greasy, limp, and tasting heavily of salt, it coats his stomach, though, allowing him to ration out one of the pain pills he took with him when he left. He knows he has to go slow on them, he was not ready to leave the hospital physically, and the migraines aren’t going to get better any time soon.

While he waits for the pill to kick in, he makes a rough outline of a plan. He needs more money, some clothes, and a way out of this town quickly before Gwaine blows back in. Eggsy figures he has two, at the best, three, days before Gwaine is back and looking for him. Eggsy knows fuck all about the States, but he does know it’s a big place, big enough for him to get lost in while he figures out what he is going to do about Kingsman.

The next day he eats very sparingly, just enough to keep him going, and gets a set of clothes from the local charity shop. Jeans, a ragged hoodie, and trainers are much easier to blend in while wearing than two day old nurses scrubs. He lifts a few more wallets by the end of the dat, including one off of some rich fuck who had chased him down three streets until Eggsy was sure his lungs were going to collapse, that was packed with bills, and that gives him enough money to buy a bus ticket. A few hours later he is heading for some place called Cincinnati, a city guaranteed to swallow him whole.

—————

Eggsy thinks living in London would have prepared him for another large city no matter where it was located. He thought wrong. Cincinnati is shite, utter shite, and he hates it. It is loud, louder than London ever thought of being, the people are arseholes of the nth degree, and it is absolutely filthy with criminals. It is perfect.

Eggsy gets lucky his first month there. He had been staying at a homeless shelter, pickpocketing and sucking a few cocks when needed ( _turns out a john with a hard cock will turn a blind eye to_ your _blind eye when they are coming down your throat, ha-ha,_ Eggsy thinks as he washes the taste of latex out of his mouth), when he happens to save some reedy looking bloke from getting the shite kicked out of him, a reedy looking bloke who happens to be a mid-level gopher for one of the larger drug dealers in the city. By the end of his second month he is out of the homeless shelter and on bodyguard detail for the dealer, Mr. Mosley. Mosley is spray tanned, bloated, greasy, with dyed hair and a drug problem to match even his most voracious of clients. The man thinks that because all of his underlings talk to him as if he was the second coming of Christ, he truly is. But still, Eggsy can’t complain too much at this point. He has his own room, a fresh supply of drugs, and a steady stream of warm bodies in his bed if he wants them.

For a little while he takes the drugs. They help with the migraines and they definitely help with everything else. Each night he is flying so high that Kingsman, Harry, and the rest of the sorry fucks he left in England are nothing but shadows. He does blow off a pro’s tits, more off another’s cock, and he takes anyone that even catches his eye into his bed, letting the drugs and rough sex make him forget that he was ever anything or anyone else than what he is in that moment. He punches people when told to, strong arms those stupid enough to get in his way, and makes a name for himself as someone that you don’t fuck with, unless of course, you want to _fuck_ him.

On the rare nights he is actually alone in his bed, fucked out of his head on whatever he took that night, he hugs a pillow to his chest and thinks about a man he loved and who didn’t love him back. He thinks about trust gave so freely, so completely that he never even questioned _not_ giving it. He thinks about best mates and a stuffy English manor where he ran, and fought, and trained, and pushed himself in the hope that he could become the person he so desperately wanted to become. He thinks about studies painted red and shoulder holsters, gin-scented breath puffing over his cheek. He thinks about home, and wonders if he will ever see any of it again. He wonders why he still cares.

Those are the nights he sobs until he passes out, ones that wrack his body until the bed shakes against the wall, his crying keeping up half the hall. Those are the nights he rages alone in his room. His fists break mirrors, punch walls until they give, over and over again until Mosley sends someone in to restrain him before he damages more of Mosely’s property, property that includes Eggsy as well.

Then, four months in, he, in a moment of clarity, realizes he is going down a very dangerous road. The drugs have stopped being something he _chooses_ to do, instead turning into something he _needs_ to do. Having already beaten an addiction about a year before Harry came into his life, he remembers enough of the experience to not want to repeat it. Besides that, once he stops to look at himself and realizes what he is doing, it makes his skin crawl. He’s turned into one of Dean’s dogs. One night he had to beat a man half to death while Mosley looked on, completely unmoved by the man’s screaming and begging ( _please, please, I’ll have the money next week, my baby girl was sick and she needed medicine, please_ over and over again until Eggsy knocked out enough of the man’s teeth and dislocated his jaw so that he couldn’t speak), until Mosley had said _Enough!_ and walked out of the room. Eggsy had looked at his hands, bruised and bloodied, looked at the man lying in his own piss and thought he just might go back to his room and put a bullet in his head. _I see a young man with potential,_ Harry had once said to him. He wonders what Harry would see if he looked at him now.

He has to go home to England, soon, no matter what awaits him there. He is better than this, and if he isn’t, if this is all he was ever meant to be, some fucking prick who solves all his problems with violence, sex, and drugs, he’d rather do it at home rather than a place that makes tea so fucking rank he’s had to switch to coffee.

And even though he knows he has to go home, he still teeters back and forth on the subject of Harry and Kingsman. The months spent in the States, first as Eggsy, now as Whitey ( _because apparently drug dealers, for all their cunning and business smarts, can’t think of a more menacing or original name than Whitey, for fuck’s sake, when faced with Eggsy’s eye_ ) have given him no clarity on who he can trust, if any of them. He now knows for a fact he does not trust Gwaine. That man is dirty according to Eggsy’s intuition, and he trusts himself like he trusts no other, but he can’t say he trusts Kingsman either.

He can’t believe Roxy was in on it, she was his best mate, as good a bruv as Ryan and Jamal, and he trusts her completely. But Harry, the man who helped him along his way in training, giving him a shove, quiet ones, nudges really, in the right direction when Eggsy needed it, and Merlin who always seemed to go out of his way to encourage Eggsy above all others, give Eggsy pause. Even knowing his dad aside, they seemed awfully invested on Eggsy making it through, and Eggsy ain’t never known anyone to go out of their way that much for someone unless they were getting something back in return. So, he spends the next few weeks detoxing and quietly offloading the drugs he took, but never _took_ , for cash to buy a fake passport and ID for the trip back to England. The remaining cash he loads on one of those pre-paid debit cards except for a few hundred dollars he keeps on himself along with his new ID and passport. Now, he knows, he just has to bide his time until he can slip away unseen, because people just don’t quit Mosley, not unless they want to end up dead.

Eggsy has died once, he doesn’t fancy doing it again anytime soon.

In the end, his chance falls right into his lap. Jerry, one of Mosley’s runners, has to go out to deliver some drugs to one of Mosley’s prime customers and Eggsy got picked for watchdog duty. At one of the stoplights Eggsy deploys one of his Kingsman darts from his watch straight into Jerry’s neck. Jerry slumps over in his seat, his arms wrapped around the brick of heroin he was going to deliver like it’s his favorite teddy. Eggsy pulls over and looks at him for a moment. He remembers how Jerry liked to “break in” the new pros when they were brought in, especially the younger ones. Jerry wakes up an hour later tied to the hood of a police car with that same brick of heroin taped to his chest and a note pinned to his jacket identifying him, Mosley, and giving the police the addresses of Mosley’s three principal places of business.

Sixteen hours after Eggsy leaves Jerry wrapped and ready for the police he touches down in Heathrow. He finds the nearest, and cheapest, hotel he can find and sleeps for ten hours straight. The next day he goes to see what he can see about how life has gotten along on without him.

In all honesty, from what he can see, it, and everyone, has gotten along just fine. The Saville Row shop still stands. And apparently, so does Harry. Eggsy’s heart just about jumps out of his chest when he finally lays eyes on the man, walking up the street, a to-go cup in one hand and the other twirling his umbrella like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Eggsy almost calls out to him before he realizes that Harry thinks he is dead, and he needs to keep it that way for the time being. He watches Harry walk into the shop, greet a shopkeeper Eggsy does not recognize, and disappear into a fitting room. Eggsy longs to be taking that lift ride down with Harry, to step on the bullet train and head to the manor. He wants it so much he can feel tears pricking his eyes.

He reigns himself in. Harry doesn’t look like his is suffering much from Eggsy’s absence, nor does Kingsman look to be affected overmuch from V-Day. Eggsy knows rationally that six months have passed, so damage can be repaired, but he would like to think that he had been mourned the same way he has been mourning them.

He watches the shop for a week, different times during the day, just to see who comes and goes. Harry, of course, slides in and out at various times. Eggsy catches a glimpse of Roxy, or Lancelot now, looking smart as fuck in her bespoke, and it makes him smile. For just a split second he thinks he has been found out, when, on the third day, he watches her walk out with Merlin, laughing at something he said, and she stops dead in her tracks to look right at the darkened overhang he has secluded himself in, hoodie down over his face. He becomes very scared that she knows, that the jig is up so to speak, and he is about to be eating a bullet he won’t dodge this time, but then Merlin murmurs something to her, she shakes herself and walks on. Her laughter carries down the street behind her.

The next night, he shadows Harry and Percival as they walk down to the pub. He has to stay far enough back that they don’t see him so he can’t listen in on what they are saying but once they get to the pub, he is able to slide into a booth a few down from them where he can catch snippets of their conversation. They talk of mostly inconsequential things, literal shop talk about fabrics, orders, and whether the tailor shop should join the “new age” and get a functioning website. Eggsy has to suppress a snort. Just like those rich fucks to think the Internet is the new fucking age, but his mirth is cut short when he hears them mention V-Day.

“To look around, you would never believe that V-Day happened six months ago,” Percival mutters. “This whole area rebuilt rather quickly.”

“Yes, well, that whole thing was a complete and utter cock-up from beginning to end. What Arthur was thinking when he signed up for that is completely beyond me,” Harry answers. “Luckily for us, we were able to come back from it quicker than most, even if we did lose half of the Table.”

“They made their choice, Harry, and those that didn’t had it made for them.”

Eggsy is stunned. Arthur was in on it, Gwaine apparently hadn’t been lying about that, and if he wasn’t lying about that, then Eggsy thinks there is a pretty good chance he wasn’t lying about any of it. His hands tremble more than normal and his pint sloshes on the table in front of him. He has to get out of here now before he does something he regrets later. He’s been playing the long game and he’s come too far to fuck it up now. He throws a few notes on the table and rushes out of the pub. He makes it back to his hotel before collapsing on the floor, one breath away from a panic attack. 

It was true. Kingsman had been in league with Valentine. It was all fucking _true_.

At the end of the week, when he feels like he has observed all that he can, when he has looked for his mum, Daisy, Ryan, and Jamal, and finds nothing (although he was gratified to find that Dean’s name, along with his dogs, were on the list of the dead), he decides it's time to go talk to Harry.

That night he silently slips into Harry’s house through the garden doors and sits in the dark of the kitchen. He stays calm while he listens to Harry come in, speak to JB, who Eggsy had to dig his nails into his palms to keep from hugging, and walk around the house, shedding his suit, putting away his guns, and getting comfortable in a space he thinks is safe.

But it’s not, not at all. Because Eggsy is there, and the gun sitting in his lap is loaded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one hell of a head cold and am not sure if I caught everything in my final edit. I almost waited until tomorrow to post the new chapter, but then felt bad since I promised updates on Mondays. If you see anything I missed (wrong tense or misspellings), please let me know so I can fix it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone's in the kitchen with Harry.

Harry stands in his kitchen, nails tapping against the light marble countertop, pondering his reflection in it while waiting for the kettle to boil. He has already removed his jacket and holster by the door, and is standing barefoot, in his trousers and white button up, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His glasses lay on the counter next to him, hopefully silent for the rest of the night. The click of JB’s nails against the floor tiles announce the dog coming through the house, looking for him.

“In here, boy,” he calls, even though he knows JB knows exactly where he is. The kettle shrieks at the same time, and Harry busies himself making his tea and laying out a few biscuits for himself. He carries the tea tray out into the living room and returns to the kitchen for the dog. JB, forever anticipating food, would stay in the kitchen most of the night if Harry did not go back for him.

“Yes, there is a biscuit on the tray for you. You’re terribly spoilt, you know.” Harry picks the dog up, groaning just a little at the twinge he feels in his lower back. He swears he has aged more in the past year than the past ten. “Getting a little heavy there, old chap,” he murmurs into JB’s head. “What would your Da say if he saw how rotund you’ve gotten since he’s been gone?”

“He’d probably say you’ve been feeding him too much fucking bacon, bruv.”

Harry whirls around, instinct causing him to tighten JB to his chest with one hand while the other reaches under the counter for the gun he keeps there. He has the man sitting in his breakfast nook in his sights in the space of one inhaled, but not exhaled, breath. The voice is the same one he hears every moment of every day, and yet it cannot be, _cannot be_ , who he thinks it is.

“Who the fuck are you?” Harry asks, holding the gun steady, even though he feels like he is shaking apart. JB is all but a worm in his arms, scrabbling to get to what he thinks is his long lost master. “I suggest you tell me quickly because I am one second away from pulling the trigger.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve survived a bullet, now would it? Starting to think I’m invincible, me.” The man leans forwards into the light, and Harry sees, _he fucking sees,_ Eggsy sitting there with his own gun lying on the table, his hand wrapped around it.

“Eggsy…” Harry breathes, not one hundred percent sure he is not seeing things or in the throes of a night terror already. He doesn’t remember going to bed yet, but that makes a whole lot more fucking sense as to why Eggsy, whose brains had cooked on the black tarmac in Redneck, KY six months ago, is now sitting in his kitchen. Dressed in all black, trousers, and a fitted v-neck shirt with rugged boots on his feet, Eggsy had angled himself into the darkened corner of the room and had blended in so seamlessly Harry doubts he would have noticed anyone sitting there even if he had been looking.

The light brings Eggsy’s face into stark relief. The bullet that had hit him, but apparently did not take his life, has given him a thick, white scar that resembles a map of a nerve. His left eye is completely white, and he wears no patch to cover it.

“I know this is a shock and all for you bruv, seeing as you thought I were dead. Almost as much as a shock as finding out the great Galahad never changed his security protocols on his house after V-Day. Sloppy, Haz. I expected more from you.”

“Arthur.” Harry croaks out, keeping his gun on Eggsy.

“Hmm?” Eggsy asks, looking at him, his eyebrow cocked.

“Arthur, I’m Arthur now.” And why in the fuck Harry was prattling on about correct titles when _Eggsy was sitting in his fucking kitche_ n was something Harry could not figure out.

“Oh, well, that’s something, innit? Congratulations. The old fuck not survive V-Day and all?” Eggsy smiles at that. “Say, are you going to put the fucking gun down and let me see my dog, or are you just going to finish the job?”

Harry lowers the gun, and at the same time lowers JB to the floor. Within seconds JB is in Eggsy’s lap with Eggsy speaking to him. “Not too much of a guard dog, are you boy? Let your old Da sneak in here with not a bark to be heard.” For just a split second, with his scarred side of his face turned away, Harry could almost believe the church, V-Day, and the aftermath never happened.

“Finish the job? What does that mean? And why did you never call, or contact us, or anything? We would have come for you.” Harry moves towards Eggsy, and in a flash Eggsy is the one standing with a gun. His hand shakes with the finest of tremors.

“Oh, I am sure you would have ‘come for me’ if you all knew I was alive. Cos’ me being alive wasn’t part of the plan now was it? Should’ve known that all that ‘being superior to your former self’ was a bunch of bullshite. I’ve even heard that some posh fuckers have been seen skulking around my old estate, and one of the boys were found dead. Looking for me, were you?”

“Eggsy,” Harry starts, his hands out to his sides. He physically aches to touch Eggsy and he moves forward again unconsciously.

“No, bruv. I would stay right where you are if I were you.” The tremors are more pronounced now.

Harry backs up a step to his original position.

“Gwaine told me about the plan to send me over there as a test subject for Valentine’s sim cards, about how I was expandable because everyone thought I was a worthless chav, how much of a laugh everyone got out of watching me try to become something I ain’t never had no business being in the first place.” Eggsy’s voice is brittle.

“Gwaine is a traitor…”

“Oh, I bet he is since he told me everything. But what really got me was how you were in on it Harry. I mean, I thought we was friends, me and you. I thought you didn’t care nothing about my past, but it turns out I was right about you and I in the pub, I wasn’t nothing but cannon fodder to you. I heard you and Percival the other night, talking about how V-Day was a cock-up and how those that didn’t make the right choice had it made for them. Guess I was one of those, yeah? Even though I wasn’t given one.”

Harry startles at that. Eggsy had been that close to him and he _never knew it?_ “No, you have it completely wrong, I promise. I swear to you, I knew nothing about the sim testing at the church. We did not know you survived. If we had, if _I had_ , Eggsy, I would have come to you in an instant, a heartbeat, my dear boy.”

“Oh, and I am supposed to believe that? You got some proof of this?” A mean smirk curls Eggsy’s lips. The cracked and broken heart Harry had slowly pieced together over the past few months shatters once more.

“Just come back to the manor. Come back and let me show you everything.” Harry begins moving forward again, and Eggsy’s hand immediately tightens on his gun.

“Like that’s going to fucking happen. I ain’t going anywhere near that place until I know I ain’t walking into my own death from Kingsman’s hands, again.”

Harry keeps inching forward. “Please, Eggsy, trust me.”

“Harry, one more fucking step and I will shoot. Swear the fuck down.”

Harry stops, his eyes flicking from Eggsy to his glasses on the countertop to Eggsy’s gun.

“I can see you thinking from here, and it ain’t going to happen. I am walking out of here. I will leave JB here, cos I ain’t got nowhere to bring him that’s safe right now. And no matter how much you may want me dead, I can see you have taken care of him while I’ve been gone.” Eggsy lets JB onto the floor, his eyes never leaving Harry.

“Eggsy, please, just let me…” He reaches. It’s only through years of training that allows Harry not to flinch when the gun goes off and a bullet embeds itself in the wall directly behind him.

“I wasn’t fucking joking Harry. Next one goes in your skull, we will see if you have the same survival skills as I do, yeah? Now I am walking out of here, and you will not fucking follow me.”

“And if I can get this ‘proof’ you want, how shall I find you then?”

“I’ll find you. If you think this is a first time I have been within touching distance of you since I ‘died,’ you ain’t the spy you think you are.”

The hand holding the gun turns slightly to the side and Harry hears the telltale snick of a Kingman dart being deployed. He’s on the floor and going under fast when he realizes a) his maid is doing a rather shit job of sweeping underneath his counters, b) there is a rather loud alarm going off somewhere in his house, and c) Eggsy may have run his fingers through his hair before he disappeared into the night. Only two of these things annoy him.

Harry comes around to find Merlin kneeling next to him, smacking his face ( _Wake up you daft sod, WAKE THE FUCK UP_ ), Lancelot prowling around his house, and Percival standing over them, gun lowered, but obviously on point.

“Merlin, I promise you, if you slap me one more time I will summarily turn down every requisition for Avalon that you submit for the next month.”

“Jesus, Harry. You gave me a fucking fright.” Merlin stands up and gives Harry a hand up.

“How did you know to come here? I didn’t ping you.”

“Like I don’t have eyes on Arthur’s house, for fuck's sake, Harry, get a clue,” Merlin says, leaning a hip against the countertop and crossing his arms.

“You had better not have eyes on any part of my house, you nosy bastard.” Harry rubs his hands over his face trying to dispel the after effects of the sleep dart.

“Oh, please, I’m not watching you wank, Harry. I just have a small surveillance code running through your alarm system that alerts me if certain things happen,” his eyebrows raise meaningfully, “you know, like fucking gunshots. So, do you want to explain why we found you on your floor, with a Kingman dart in your neck no less, and a bullet hole in your kitchen wall?”

“Ah, yes, that. It’s quite simple, you see. Eggsy is alive, and he just paid me a social call.”

—————

That night Avalon is a veritable whirlwind of activity. Merlin sits at his desk in the center of it all, with all his screen running facial recognition on every CCTV feed he can get his hands on. Harry stands in the back of the room, in his suit once more, and watches it all.

“I want to know where he came into the country, where he is staying, who he is in contact with, and where he buys his fucking loo paper. Understood?” His workers scurry around him, personally double and triple checking every single possible blip that could be Eggsy. His shoulders are tight and drawn up under his dove gray jumper, and his dark wool trousers are hopelessly creased.

Lancelot and Percival quietly sit together at their own station, running checks on Michelle and Daisy, including the CCTV feed from Daisy’s new day care and Michelle’s job, to see if Eggsy had found and contacted them before coming to Harry.

“Merlin, stop acting like the boy is a threat. He is one of ours, and that is why we are looking for him, to bring him home, not to ‘bring him in’ like he’s a mark for god sakes.”

Merlin whirls around on Harry. If the man had hair, it would be standing on end at this point. As it was his scalp shone with a sheen of sweat. “He’s not a threat? He broke into your house and fired a gun at you, and then dosed you with a dart, Harry. That’s not exactly a friendly visit.”

“Gregor,” Harry starts, “I was in the house for at least an hour before I even knew the boy was there. Do you not think, knowing Eggsy like we do, that if he wanted me dead, I would be fucking _dead_?”

“Then why was he there? And why did he fire at you?”

“Well, had you listened to me instead of bundling me into medical like I was on my deathbed, you’d have the answer to that question. Eggsy is operating under the idea that we,” Harry twirls his finger around, encompassing everyone in the room, “as in Kingsman, sent him to that church as the sacrificial lamb to help Valentine test out his sim cards, and that when he was shot, we also, being the traitorous arseholes that we are, left him to die.”

“And why in the fuck does he think that,” Merlin asks, his brows arching toward his nonexistent hairline.

“Apparently our friend Gwaine, and that clearly colors his coat, told him that, why I have no clue, and Eggsy believed him. That’s all I got out of him before he dosed me and disappeared. He did seem like he would be willing to listen if we could show him some proof as to what I was trying to tell him, but I guarantee we won’t be getting him to the manor anytime soon.”

“He is still a threat until he has been proven not be one. He fucking shot at you. I don’t like it anymore than you do, but there are protocols I must follow.”

Harry reaches up and pulls off the small gold K he wears on his lapel. “You leave me no choice. I am calling in my favor.” He tosses it on the desk next to Merlin. Behind him, Percival’s eyes grow wide. “We do this my way, Gregor. You cannot deny me this. If, after we are able to find him and speak to him, if he still seems to be a threat, we will do it yours.”

Merlin looks at the pin and then at Harry. There is a small spark of relief in his eyes, just as Harry thought there might be. “Jesus. Fine.” Merlin’s shoulders finally seem to inch their way down from his ears. 

—————

“We’ve found him, Harry.” Merlin's voice comes through his glasses four hours later. Harry had not been back to his house, instead he had gone to his office and tried to sleep on the couch that was in there. A horrid, leather thing that squeaked every time he breathed.

Harry flies up into a sitting position. “Where?”

“A hotel not far from his old home. He is there under an assumed name, but we caught just a glimpse of him on the CCTV outside of it. Should we go get him?”

“No, leave him be for the night, nothing will be accomplished by barging in there and grabbing him. Everyone who should be home should go home. You and I will meet back in my office tomorrow morning and make some decisions.”

“I still think-“

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know, Gregor, but please, this is my mess. This is _Eggsy_. Just let me have the next few hours to think this through. I promise, I will listen to you tomorrow.”

“Aye, fine. I’ll give you the night. You’ll be going home as well.”

“Yes,” Harry lied. “I’m heading to the shuttle right now. Arthur out.”

Harry cuts his transmission and lay back down on the creaking monster beneath him. He knew he was still in shock. Seeing Eggsy again, alive, sitting in his kitchen was simultaneously the best and the worst thing that could have happened to him. The best because the man he loved wasn’t dead, he was there, close enough to touch, and oh, how Harry had wanted to touch. He wanted to feel Eggsy’s smaller frame in his arms, breathe in the scent of his skin once more, to tell him all the things he had told his ghost during those long months Eggsy had been dead. But it was also the worst. That scar, like a deadened nerve tracing across his temple and that ghostly eye staring back at him, taunted him with his failures, his failure to keep Eggsy safe, loved, and away from harm. To know that he thought Harry had left him to die in front of that godforsaken church like he was nothing but trash to be thrown away when Harry was done, cut him to the quick.

He definitely would not be going home. He is going to sit in this office and figure out a plan to bring Eggsy back to them. Back to him.

—————

Unlike Harry, Merlin is actually on time for his appointments, and in fact, this morning he’s a few minutes early, breezing into Harry’s, what he thought was unoccupied, office carrying a tea tray. Which, of course, scares the living shit out of Harry, who had finally fallen asleep on the couch, making him fly up off the couch, reaching for the gun that is in his shoulder holster, the shoulder holster that is not, in fact, around his shoulders, but is on the coat rack, and bellow out “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?” before he realizes who he is looking at.

Merlin stops in mid-stride to the desk, tea tray and clipboard still in hand, and a chocolate digestive hanging out of his mouth. His eyebrows rise slowly, and he pushes the digestive out of his mouth with his tongue. They both watch it fall into one of the teacups.

“I do hope that wasn’t mine,” Harry says, smoothing down his wrinkled shirt, red-faced and staring at his shoes.

“I thought you went home,” Merlin replies.

“Yes, well, you were meant to so that you wouldn’t be in here mother-henning me all night.” Harry recovers his composure, walks over to where Merlin is standing. “Ah, excellent, Earl Grey.”

“Jesus, Harry if I have to sit in here with you, at least go and brush your teeth. Your breath is atrocious.”

“Well, be a good chap then and fix me a cup. I’ll be right back.”

Upon his return, having cleaned his teeth and put on a fresh shirt, he finds that Merlin has indeed fixed his tea and is already working his way through the biscuits while he lays out papers on the desk. Crumbs dot Merlin’s cashmere, wood-colored jumper, his glasses sit on top of his head. 

“Try not to get crumbs all over the office, man, we don’t want bugs.” 

“Go fuck yourself, you’re the one whose manky prick is sitting in day old pants. I at least bathed today.” 

Harry smiles, sits down, and takes a sip of his tea. 

“Perfect, thank you.”

“Aye, of course it is, I made it. Anyway, from what the techs were able to piece together, Eggsy is staying at multiple hotels in the area, cycling through them at random, but all within a small radius of his estate. I think he is probably looking for Michelle and Daisy, but as far we know, he hasn’t made contact with anyone to ask.” 

“Any ideas on how we should make contact with him?” Harry continues sipping his tea, pretending not to stare at the couple of grainy photos they have of Eggsy. It was just so good to see him, even if it was in a photo. 

“Yes, actually. I think our best bet is to use Roxy. I have had the techs load your feed from your ‘discussion’ with Arthur and all of our feeds from V-Day onto this flash drive. I think we should give the lad a couple days. Once he sees he is not a mark he may be a little more receptive to us. No matter where he is staying, he seems to gravitate towards one of two internet cafes in the mornings. I say we let Roxy approach him because I think no matter what he may think about us, his trust in Roxy is absolute, and have her give him the drive.”

“And after he sees the contents of the drive? What then?”

“Well, I am hoping once he hears your little speech and sees you carve the chip out of Chester’s neck, he will contact us.”

“I want to add a file to the drive personally, and please tell Roxanne to ask him to call me when he finishes the flash drive. Give him both the office phone number and my home phone.” 

“And if he doesn’t call?” 

“We’ll worry about it then.” 

The next few days are torture for Harry. He knows Eggsy is somewhere alive and well in the city, within less than a ten-mile radius of him he supposes. He resists the urge to find the boy, instead forcing himself to go about his business both in and out of the office. Twice, when stopping at the shops on his way home, he knows with a spy’s sixth sense that someone is watching him, but he does not react. If he sees Eggsy, and Eggsy runs, he cannot be held accountable for giving chase. And that is the last thing that needs to happen if they want to recover him. Instead, he picks out his tea and the oatmeal he eats for his cholesterol and goes home. JB always looks at the door expectantly for someone else. Harry resists the urge to do the same. 

————— 

Roxy did not expect her heart to be beating nearly as hard as it is as she approaches the coffee shop. CCTV had picked Eggsy up going in about twenty minutes ago and had not seen him leave. She fingers the flash drive in her hand and slowly pushes the door open. 

Eggsy sits at a table in the back, a laptop open and his hand wrapped around a to-go cup. Harry had told her about his scarring, but the sight of it leaves her a little breathless. The white eye was especially jarring. The raised scar travels up into his hairline. In the sunlight she can see small white scars radiating out from around his eye socket, like white gem chips, a sunburst of healed pain. People stare, look away, and stare again.

“What’s your problem, dick? Ain’t never seen someone so pretty before?” Eggsy growls at the man who has been giving him the majority of the looks. The man promptly gets up and leaves. “Fuckwad.”

As Eggsy’s eyes follow the man out the door, they land on Roxy. They widen comically before he starts to shut his laptop. 

“No, Eggsy, please. I’m just here as me. See no suit, no glasses, no watch, just me.” She walks towards him until she is three feet away, stops, and holds her hands out in front of her, the flash drive dangling from her first finger on her right hand. She purposely dressed in civilian clothes, knowing that the full Kingsman kit would turn Eggsy off faster than she could get a word out. “I just want to give you this.” 

Eggsy looks at her, appraising her clothes, her words, the micro-tells on her face, everything. “Why should I trust you? You’re Lancelot know, yeah? Probably had a good laugh about me with them.” 

She fixes him with her most withering look. “You told me that no matter what happened, we were friends and nothing could change that. Well, nothing has fucking changed that for me, but perhaps something has changed for you?”

He has the grace to look a little abashed. “No, Rox, nothing has changed for me when it comes to you. But the rest of them can take a fucking leap, yeah? Besides, I said I’d get in touch with you lot when I was ready, but I guess since you’re here and all…” Eggsy trails off.

“And that’s fine, actually that is what I am here about. On this flash drive is the proof you said you wanted, proof that we, and that means none of _us_ ,” she lightly taps her heart with her fist, willing him to understand who "us" meant, “were in on V-Day. None of us knew what would happen after you left.”

“Right, so’s I just pop this little flash drive in my computer and suddenly there is a tracker on me?"

“No, you little idiot. You pop the flash drive in your computer and you look at the files on it. If they satisfy you, call Harry, his numbers, and mine, are on a file on the drive. If you want something more, you call me. We obviously knew to find you here. If we were coming in guns blazing, would I be standing here in yoga pants?” 

Eggsy smiles for the first time since he saw her. “Well, you know as well as I do that you don’t need a suit to be deadly.”

She smiles back, the vise around her heart completely disappearing. “No, I don’t. Now I am going to come over and put this on the table and walk out.” She moves forward, her eyes never leaving Eggsy’s, and places the flash drive on the table. She turns to leave.

“Rox?” 

“Yeah, Eggs?” she says as she turns back. 

“It is good to see you. I mean that.”

“I know you do, Eggsy, and it’s good to see you too. Now look at that drive and pull your head out of your arse. I could really go for a pint with my best friend.” She smiles, blows him a kiss, and walks out the door. 

Eggsy sits for a moment, twirling the drive around in his hands. Part of him truly does worry that there will be a tracker on the drive and the minute he plugs it in he’ll be staring down another gun. But Rox is right, if they wanted him, they obviously knew how to find him and he’s still sitting here, so he will concede that point. 

He plugs the drive into his comp and a familiar K logo appears. On the drive are four files, two of which are folders titled _Harry/Arthur, V-Day_ , and two documents titled _Numbers_ and _Read After the Videos_. A notification pops up on his screen. _Watching these alone would be highly recommended, Eggsy. ~Merlin_.

Eggsy is torn between chucking the whole thing as soon as he sees that and wanting to know, desperately if he had to admit to it, what was in those files. As much as he railed at Harry that night, he wanted to believe him too, believe that Harry did not abandon him to death. Eggsy makes a decision, he will not lead them back to his room for the next day, but he will go to a secluded, but escapable part of the nearby park to work his way through the files. He really hopes Gwaine is about to be proven wrong.

A few minutes later, Eggsy is tucked up in a small copse of trees, laptop balanced on his lap and a fresh cup of tea, that he may have fortified with a drop of whiskey, in hand. He opens the flash drive back up and starts the video file of Harry and Arthur.

He watches it three times. To hear that old fucker talk so carelessly about killing off so much of the world’s population, and to know that the massacre in the church was a fucking experiment, makes Eggsy sick to his stomach. 

Admittedly, he also re-watches it because the sight of Harry sitting there, calm and collected, but with vengeance in his eyes, makes Eggsy’s heart flutter a little. He still doesn’t know what to think about the way things were left, ( _and still are?_ ), between the two of them, but he knows that the feelings he has for Harry did not just go away, even if the man was part of the reason he was left in Kentucky, something he very much doubts now. 

To see Harry lean forward, death in his eyes and state “ _Now listen, for I am only going to say this once. I would rather be with Eggsy, thank you,”_ makes Eggsy warmer than what he can blame on his tea. How Chester had not looked at Harry and seen his own demise in those flat eyes, eyes that were usually the color of warm wood, is completely beyond Eggsy. Had Harry ever looked at _him_ like that, Eggsy would have run as far as he could and as fast as he could. 

The video from Valentine’s bunker dispels any notion that Eggsy may have had that Harry, Roxy, and Merlin were in on the whole debacle. The video is spliced between all three of their feeds. Eggsy has to give Roxy credit for the whole going to space without a ship thing because that made him uncomfortably close to pissing himself and he was just watching it, Christ. And to see Harry fight reminds Eggsy of all the things that made him want to become a Kingsman agent in the first place, elegant and deadly, with so much skill it was awe inspiring. He was sad when it ended just as Harry launched Gazelle’s leg at Valentine.

He finally opens the document marked for reading after the videos. 

_Eggsy,_

_I hope that if you are reading this, the videos on the drive have done their job, and even if you don’t believe us completely yet, you are at least willing to come in and talk to us._

_I would like to reiterate, in case what you, hopefully, just watched, did not do the job that we, and by that I mean Merlin, Percival, Roxanne, and I, had no idea of Chester’s betrayal, nor of the nefarious plan behind the trip to the Church._ (Eggsy finds it funny, but not in a ha-ha way, that Harry capitalizes the Church like Eggsy does within his own mind. It’s not just the church, but the Church, a singular, horrifying, defining moment within their lives.) _We would have never left you there had we known you were alive. Kingsman, being the agency we are, have a policy of not claiming agent’s bodies, and that is why we never came for you. We believed you were dead, and therefore, because of protocols in place since our formation, never came for your body._

_I do hope that you will call me, or Roxanne, and give us a chance to be part of your life again. If you would like, I would very much like to discuss bringing you back into the Table, although I understand if that is something you no longer want. But, please, Eggsy, I beg of you, let us, let me, back into your life. I have missed you terribly, and just want a chance to be, if nothing else, your friend again._

_Yours always,_

_Harry Reginald Hart, III._

Eggsy picks up his phone and dials. Harry answers on the first ring.

“Eggsy?” 

“Hey, Haz.” 

Harry laughs and doesn’t correct him like he normally would. Eggsy smiles, the first real smile he thinks he has had in months. 

“It is so good, so very good, to hear your voice, Eggsy.” 

“Same here. It must be a relief to hear it with me pointing a gun at you, yeah?” 

Harry laughs and it sounds a bit thick. “If that’s what has to be done for you to speak to me, I’ll gladly face it. I take it you looked at the contents of the flash drive?” 

“I did.” 

“And?” 

“And I think I’d like to come home, bruv, I think I’d like that very much, if I still have a home with you guys and all.”

“Eggsy, you will always have a home here, _always_.”

Eggsy can hear that Harry is crying. That’s ok, because Eggsy is too.

————— 

Eggsy feels his heart beating faster the closer he gets to the shop. He knows that he has nothing to fear from anyone in Kingsman, but the past six months of constantly looking over his shoulder is a mental muscle memory he can’t shake. 

He’s not wearing bespoke today. His one suit, the one from Harry, was given up as a bad job when he was admitted to hospital. He cried for a day straight when he realized he was never going to see it again. No, today he is dressed in what he finds comforting, jeans, polo, and a black track jacket, his white snapback firmly on his head. He had thought briefly about dressing up a little bit, he was going to the manor after all, but in the end, he knew he'd want the familiar weight of his own clothes around him, no matter how much he hoped he would be getting a wardrobe of suits again. 

He stops in front of the shop, looking at the suits in the window, thinking back to the boy he was a year ago, face still blooming purple from Dean’s fist, wondering what exactly he was going to have to do to repay this Harry Hart guy’s benevolence. He pushes open the door. The shop is empty except for Percival who is behind the counter. He looks exactly the same as Eggsy remembers, dressed in all black, dark hair immaculately styled in the middle part that most agents seem to favor. He has a new scar on his cheek, but that doesn’t mar his boyish good looks, it just transforms them from boyish into dashing. He looks up at Eggsy, his surprise showing in the way his left eye barely twitches. 

“Eggsy, it is good to see you.” Percival comes from around the counter with his hand extended. Eggsy takes it and is surprised when he is pulled into a brief, but solid, hug. He stiffens instinctually. Percival immediately steps back. “My apologies.”

“No, Perce, no worries. I’m just getting used to being around people who aren’t gunning for me again, yeah?” Eggsy reaches out and clasps Percival’s bicep, pulling him back into a hug. When he pulls away, he checks out the scar on the other man’s face, “Looks like we both got the wrong end of V-Day, eh?”

Percival’s eyes track up to Eggsy’s blank eye and the scar that threads it way across his temple. “Looks like. My mark and I were trapped in a room together during the signal. I got out with a scar from his knife, he didn’t get out at all.”

“Well, you got out, bruv, that’s all that matters.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Now, Arthur said to send you straight to the manor. I trust you remember how to get there? You hand print has been coded into the mirror so off you go. And do tell Merlin to patch the meeting through on the video feed in my glasses, I would very much like to hear what all happened to you, and I doubt you’ll want to tell it more than once. That is, of course, if you do not mind me knowing.” For a moment he looks horrified by his own presumptuousness. 

“Will do, mate, and you’re right, I don’t want to be doing this more than once. But since you’re getting mine, I want to hear yours too. Drinks at the pub one night, yeah?” 

Percival smiles. “Sounds excellent, we can make Roxanne be our driver for the night. She owes me one.” 

Eggsy smiles back at him, steps into the fitting room, and takes two deep breaths. He never thought he would be here again, this posh arse shop where he never felt he belonged in the first place till it became more home than his estate flat could have ever hoped to be. Tears prick his eyes as he puts his hand against the mirror. 

Eggsy makes his way to the bullet train and uses the thirty-minute ride to pull himself together. Harry is waiting for him when he steps off. Harry looks gorgeous as ever in a single-breasted, steel gray suit, white button-up and matching tie. 

“Eggsy,” he says with the widest grin Eggsy has ever seen on his face, “welcome back, thank you so much for coming.” Harry extends his hand in greeting. “I would very much like to hug you right now…” 

“Harry, you have no idea of how much I want that, but if you do, I am a little scared that I might cry all over your suit and I don’t fancy seeing everyone again looking like a snotty twelve-year-old.” Eggsy takes his hand, squeezing a little tighter than necessary. 

Harry laughs. “We’ll save that for later then,” clasping Eggsy’s hand just as tight. They stand for a moment, just looking at each other. It feels like the first time they have laid eyes on the other since that fight in the fitting room before Eggsy stormed off, and while that is technically not true, Eggsy had been trailing Harry for a couple weeks before he popped up in the kitchen, it is the first time they had looked at each other safely, with no perceived bad blood between them. 

“You look good Eggsy.” 

“Well, bruv, I don’t know about good, not as pretty as I once was, yeah?” Eggsy taps the scar. 

“On the contrary, Eggsy, if anything your scars show your strength.” Harry’s cheeks go a little pink at that pronouncement and he looks at the floor. “Well,” he clears his throat, looking up at Eggsy once more, “let’s head to the Table, there are others who would very much like to see you.”

“Who’s all here?” Eggsy asks as they begin walking. 

“Merlin and Roxy, of course. They wanted to meet you at the train but I used my clout and kept them from overwhelming you.” 

“You mean you wanted me to yourself for a few minutes.” 

“Yes, exactly,” Harry replies, his cheeks going pink again. “Also, Pellinore, I don’t know if you met him, will be there, and the rest of the remaining and new Knights will be joining us through their glasses. It’s not a formal meeting, but we have talked about bringing you back into Kingsman, and to do so, we have to have a unanimous vote, and they are, naturally, eager to hear your story.” 

“None of them share old Chesty’s sentiments do they?” 

“Goodness no, those that did are no longer with us,” Harry answers darkly.

“And if they don’t give their vote? What happens then?”

“They will, Eggsy, I promise, this is just a formality.” Harry reaches out and squeezes Eggsy’s hand again. “Here we are.” Harry opens the door to the Table room. “After you." 

He is barely through the door when a small body that smells faintly of strawberries hits him square in the chest. Roxy is clinging to his neck and crying softly into his jacket. He hugs back with enough force to break her ribs.

“Rox, luv, I’m here. I ain’t going anywhere, I’m right here.”

She pulls back and slaps him in the face.

“Fuck, Rox! What the hell?”

“The next time you think for even a moment, _one fucking moment_ , Eggsy Unwin, that we would betray you like that, you remember that I am more than good enough to take your sorry arse to the mat.” She hugs him again. He looks over her shoulder, eyes pleading with Harry. Harry comes up and pulls Roxy away, handing her his handkerchief.

Merlin steps in front of him, and studies his face, taking in the scarring and the dead eye. Eggsy straightens up out of habit. Merlin immediately pulls him into a hug as well. Eggsy is flabbergasted, Merlin hugs?

“Hug me back you daft sod before I make you run laps.” That was better, that was the Merlin Eggsy knew and loved. “Glad to have you back lad.” Merlin straightens up, his eyes suspiciously wet. “Don’t ever hug me again, though, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Eggsy says with a smile.

“Eggsy,” Harry calls from the other side of the room, where he is standing next to a man who is in his mid-seventies if he is a day. Eggsy walks over. “This is one of our most esteemed agents…”

“He means old,” the man breaks in as he takes Eggsy’s hand. “Our Galahad, or Arthur now, has always been a horrid windbag. I’m Pellinore, but you can call me Alfred, my boy. It is a pleasure to meet you, Harry has been filing those of us at the table in on you. I am so glad to see you survived all that V-Day mess. Dreadful business.”

“Yes, if we would like to get started. Take your seat everyone, and put on your glasses. Here Eggsy, these will be yours.” Harry says as he hands Eggsy a pair.

Eggsy sits at the head of the table and places his glasses on his face, green holograms of other knights appear around him. “Sick,” he mutters to himself.

“Indeed,” Harry answers with a smile.

“Merlin, Percival asked that he be patched into this as well since he can’t leave the shop,” Eggsy says.

Merlin makes two taps on his tablet. “Done.”

“Now,” Harry starts, “Eggsy, if you will tell us everything that has happened since you got shot.”

Eggsy takes a deep breath and begins to speak.

—————

“I was out of it for five days before I woke up in hospital. Apparently, Valentine is the worst shot in history because, despite the fact that the man had the drop on me, point blank, he still missed. The bullet hit my glasses, which are bulletproof, thank you, Merlin, you really are the guv, ” Eggsy smiles at the man, who inclines his head towards him, “and then ricocheted off of them slightly and tore through the side of my head, going along my skull but not through it.”

Eggsy can see Harry’s pale face and clenched jaw in the corner of his eye.

Eggsy drags his fingers up the scar on his temple. “I have a slight trench or something now right under the scar, but I can’t feel anything different. When the glasses shattered, the glass pieces were driven into my eye and the surrounding skin, causing some scarring, and permanently blinding me in this eye. I think it makes me look like a wicked Bond villain, though, me. I was too pretty before, now I just am a mortal like the rest of you lot.” Eggsy winks at Harry cheekily and then man smiles back at him, which is exactly what Eggsy wanted.

“The only other damage I have is from hitting the ground when I fell back. My head hit so hard I had swelling inside my skull, which has now caused some damage to my cerebrum or some brain part, which gives me hand tremors in both hands.” He holds them up, letting everyone see how they tremble. “They aren’t so bad all of the time, but when I am tired, or stressed, or the migraines I get from the damage to my head is bad enough, I shake like an old man.” Pellinore shoots him a dirty look. “Present company excluded, gentleman.”

“But why didn’t you call us when you woke up, Eggsy, or get a message to us somehow?” Merlin asks. “Did you really think we had sent you over there to die?” 

“Well, I did wonder why no one had come for me yet, seeing as Chester had watched the whole, or what I thought was the whole thing over me glasses, yeah? I mean throughout the entire time in the church,” Eggsy’s hands shake harder against the top of the table and he pulls them down to rest them on his knees, “he didn’t say nothing, and even after, while I was facing down Valentine’s gun, he was silent. And then I wake up a few days later and I got someone sitting next to my bed, your boy Gwaine, apparently, telling me that Kingsman had betrayed me.”

“What exactly did he say?” Harry inquires, looking murderous.

“He said that that he had been my pilot and he was the one who brought me into hospital. He said that we couldn’t go home because you guys had sent me over there to die and that you lot burned him when he refused to leave me there on the pavement. I’ll give him one thing, though, he was the only reason I didn’t get offed during the signals. I remember waking up with that fucking sound thrumming through my head again, and I tried to get out of bed, but I was tied down. He was sitting in front of the door, which he had barred with an IV pole or something, and was pointing his gun at it, like he knew what was coming. I remember struggling, just trying to get to him and he darted me. When I woke up again, everything was back to normal, well as normal as it could be after all that.”

“He wasn’t affected by the signal?” Harry asks. 

“Didn’t seem to be, just cool as a cucumber that one was."

“What did he tell you about our supposed betrayal of you?”

“That you guys had planned it from the beginning, that after you,” he nods at Harry, “and Valentine had dinner, Kingsman just signed on the dotted line. And, since I was the perfect test subject for Valentine to test his signal, you all made sure I made it through the tests so I could go to that church. That everything that happened,” Eggsy flicks his eyes to Harry and then to the table top, “was just a ruse to win me over and make me trust Kingsman.

“I was confused as fuck. I mean, I didn’t want to believe him, but I also didn’t _not_ believe him either. I asked for some time to wrap my head around it all. He told me he was leaving for a couple weeks to find some associates that could get him and I back here so we could take care of the people that betrayed us. He gave me a phone for him to contact me on when he got back. I don’t think it occurred to him I would do a runner.”

“What did you do with the phone? Do you still have it?” Merlin asks.

“Nah, mate, I left it in pieces in the toilet before I left out of hospital. My paranoia level was off the charts, yeah? I didn’t trust him, I didn’t trust any of you, and I didn’t even trust my own brain at that point.” Eggsy pauses, “Harry?”

Harry looks startled to be addressed out of the blue. “Yes, Eggsy? Do you need something?”

“Do you think maybe the kitchen could be persuaded to send up some tea and those weird little biscuits you always used to keep in your office?”

“Yes, my apologies, Eggsy. I’ll ring down there now.”

“Great, I am gagging for a smoke, so I’ll just nip outside, ta.”

Eggsy steps out onto the balcony that is just off of the Table room. He pulls an L&B out the pack in his pocket and lights up.

“Agents shouldn’t smoke you know, we have to be able to run for miles if need be.” Eggsy turns around, smiling as he sees Roxy. She is leaning against the door frame, the door closed as to not let any of his smoke in, her hair in a low bun and her suit, done in a deep navy with white accents, hugs her small, but sturdy as fuck, frame.

“The only habit from the States I haven’t tried to quit yet, but I can still beat your arse on the obstacle course, Rox, I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about that. Besides, I ain’t an agent anymore, am I? Never was one.”

She walks over to him and smacks him in the back of the head. Twice. Hard.

“Jesus fuck, Rox, why the fuck you got to hit me so hard? Brain injury, remember?” He turns his wounded puppy dog eyes on her. He hasn’t met a woman yet that can stand up to them. She glares back.

“I planned for it to hurt, you berk. And the brain injury still affecting you is the only thing that can explain why you think you are not a Kingsman.” Eggsy opens his mouth to speak and Roxy glares at him again. He shuts his mouth. “No, I know what you are going to say, you’re half-blind and your hands shake. We all know that, but I cannot believe for once second that Harry and Merlin will not find a place for you here. You are one of us, full stop.”

She reaches out and grabs his shoulder, squeezing once.

“Now put that disgusting thing out and come inside.”

“I will Rox, as soon as I finish it.”

She goes back inside and he stands there relishing the rush of nicotine to his blood and the burn deep in his lungs.

As soon as he is back in the room, tea made perfectly to his liking, by Harry he supposes, the man is looking awfully smug and chewing on the biscuits, he goes back to his story.

“After I left Kentucky I headed to Cincinnati, it was the largest city I could find where I thought I could hide well enough to keep Gwaine off my scent. I was there up until a week before I showed up at Harry’s house.”

“How did you live over there?” Roxy asks.

“Rox, I think we all know that while I don’t necessarily have skills I can put on a job application, I certainly have ‘skills.” Let’s just leave it at that shall we?”

“Eggsy,” Pellinore breaks in, “if we are going to vote for you returning to the table, we need to know everything.”

Eggsy sighs. “Fine then, I picked a few pockets, sucked a few cocks, and then spent four months drugged out of my skull while playing bodyguard and enforcer to a drug kingpin. It’s not something I am proud of, mate, but I did what I had to do to live. It’s not like I could walk into the nearest shop and get a job considering I didn’t exist, yeah?”

Pellinore has the decency to looked slightly abashed while Harry is looking studiously at his tea. Merlin’s brows are knit together and he is tapping with a little more force than necessary on his tablet.

“About a month ago I sobered up just long enough to see the road I was on, and how I had become the very thing I joined Kingsman to escape. So’s I quit the drugs, and when I had my chance, I just disappeared. Now I’m here.”

“And when you got back you thought it was a good idea to break into Harry’s house and pull a gun on him?” Merlin asks, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead.

“Merlin, I thought you lot had sent me to my death. I was royally pissed and wanted my revenge. I certainly didn’t expect it to go down the way it did. But if I wanted him dead, he would have been dead long before you could have even got to him. Sorry, Harry.”

“Quite alright Eggsy, you were operating under false intel, I would have done the same.”

“Well, and you know the rest from there.”

Eggsy looks around the room, at the holograms and the people in the chairs, hoping he has passed whatever sort of test this was.

Harry stands. “Thank you, everyone. We will reconvene in a week to discuss Eggsy’s place here among us. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” echoes around the room while one by one the holograms flicker out. Roxy, Pellinore, and Merlin all stand and file out of the room.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” Eggsy says, slouching in his seat. “I hope I didn’t fuck it up.

“No, Eggsy, you did not ‘fuck it up.’ I told you that this was just a formality. We just have to figure out the best place for you now.”

“Not an agent.” It isn’t a question. Eggsy looks forlornly down at his hands.

“No, most likely not an agent, Eggsy.” Harry kneels down and folds his hands over Eggsy’s. “But that doesn’t mean no field work, darling. We will figure it out, I swear this to you. You will be a part, a useful part, of this organization.”

Eggsy looks up at Harry and slowly stands, disentangling his hands from Harry’s. Harry stands with him, slightly confused.

“You know Harry, I could really use that hug you promised me earlier today.”

Harry pulls Eggsy into his arms and tight against his chest. Eggsy’s face is pressed into Harry’s jacket, his nose filled once more with that ridiculous cologne Harry still wears. He used to wake up from dreams when he was still in the States smelling that fucking stuff. He hugs back, his arms getting tighter and tighter until he is sure he is hurting the other man, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Within minutes he is sobbing, deep sobs that make his knees buckle, taking him to the floor. Harry follows him, never once breaking the embrace.

“I missed you Harry so fucking much, so fucking much. I needed you so many times…”

“I am so sorry I wasn't there for you, my darling boy,” Harry replies, one hand carding through his hair and the other rubbing circles on his back. “I would have fought through anything to be,” Harry’s voice cracks, and Eggsy realizes he is crying too, “by your side. Nothing could have kept me from you had I known you were alive.” Harry buries his face in Eggsy’s hair, rocking them back and forth. They sit on the floor, entwined so tightly it is hard to make out where one begins and the other ends and cry months of heartache and loss out in each other’s arms.

Finally, it could be minutes, it could be hours later, both of them have stopped crying. Harry has produced yet another handkerchief, monogrammed of course, and dried both his and Eggsy’s face. They stand up and right their clothes, Harry’s suit is unforgivably rumpled, Eggsy’s hat is lying somewhere on the floor, and his hair is standing on end from Harry’s hands running through it.

“Guess we both needed that, yeah?” Eggsy asks, sweeping his hands through his hair, trying to right it.

“Yes, I do believe we did.” Harry glances outside where it has begun to grow dark. “We should probably head for home before it gets too late.”

“Right, yeah, I guess we should.” Eggsy picks up his hat while Harry moves around the room putting the tea tray outside the door for housekeeping. Eggsy’s heart shrivels a bit at the thought of going back to the dark, cold hotel rooms he has been living out of for the past week, but until he is put to rights at Kingsman, he has no other choice. His scalp still tingles with the feeling of Harry’s long fingers against it. He still wants… well, this isn’t the time for that.

He falls into step with Harry, both of them heading for the bullet train.

“How about some dinner then? Those biscuits were good and all, but not really enough to fill a young thing like me up.” Eggsy looks at Harry, hoping his desperation doesn’t show in his face. _Not yet, don’t leave me yet, please._

“I think that is an excellent idea Eggsy, suggestions?”

“Uh, there’s a pub down the road from the hotel I am staying at, fucking excellent steak and kidney pie.”

“Perfect, and some Guinness to wash it down.”

“I don’t even know how you drink that stuff, bruv, fucking rank it is.”

Harry sniffs, raising his chin slightly. “I’ll have you know that it requires a discerning palette to truly be appreciated.”

“Bull, Harry. I bet you just drink it because you don’t want to admit how shite it is.” Eggsy glances at him, laughing.

The pie is just as good as Eggsy said it was, and they linger over it for two hours. Eggsy hesitantly asks where his mum and Daisy ended up, praying to God Harry doesn’t say they were victims of V-Day. His relief is bone deep when he finds out that they are not only safe, but making a life for themselves outside of London, a good one if Harry can be believed.

“I am sure that if you ask Merlin nicely, he will be happy to show you some of the footage from around where they are living.”

“You two are spying on me mum?”

“No, we are ensuring their continued safety.”

“So, spying then.”

Harry just huffs into his drink and Eggsy laughs, lighter than he has felt in months. He is already making plans to see his family again once he gets things at Kingsman squared away. His mum will have kittens, right after she knocks him on his arse of course.

“Jamal and Ryan? Do we know where they are?”

“I don’t believe we looked, Eggsy. It’s not out of lack of care, I assure you, it’s just that we were so focused on trying to get everything back together after V-Day, including ourselves. I am sure we can find them, though, we are Kingsman after all.”

“I’m not, not yet.”

“I disagree, my dear. We just need to find the place that fits you perfectly, but you are a Kingsman, never doubt that.”

Eggsy keeps asking Harry the most mundane fucking questions he can think of, anything to keep the conversation rolling, but studiously stays away from anything that happened since he “shot” JB. Harry tells him stories of his time as a candidate, and how he and Merlin had been at each other’s throats until the Arthur before Chester handcuffed Harry’s hands and Merlin’s feet, and forced them to work together to get through their day.

“It’s quite hard to hate a man who not only had to get your cock out of your pants, but hold it while you took a piss,” Harry tells him, leaning forward confidentially, like he was imparting government secrets. Eggsy almost rolls out of the booth from laughing.

Harry finishes his drink and sets the glass down. The barman brings the check, which Harry pays after giving Eggsy the most unimpressed look he could muster when Eggsy reached for it. “Well, shall we?”

Eggsy nods, he is sad to see the night end, but unable to think of anything to keep it going. When they are outside, he turns to face Harry, his hand reaching up to scratch at his nape. “Well, thanks for dinner then, Harry. It was great.” _Jesus, he sounds like a twunt._ “I guess I’ll let you get home then.” He holds his hand out as if to shake Harry’s. Harry just looks at it and then up at his face.

“Eggsy, now, I don’t mean to be presumptuous, and please, feel free to tell me to fuck off…”

Eggsy is all but bouncing on his toes. _Fucking hell, Harry, be presumptuous_ , he wants to shout.

“… But I was wondering if you were planning on staying in your hotel room tonight?”

“Well, yeah, Harry, I don’t really have any place else to go right now, do I?”

“Oh, yes, quite right. Well, I only ask, because I was wondering, if I am not being to forward, which I hope I am not…”

“Spit it out, Haz,” Eggsy says, expecting the same deadpan glare he usually got when he used to call Harry that. Instead, Harry smiles at him so brightly that Eggsy half expects to lose vision in his other eye.

“Right. I was going to say, if you can remember my proper name…”

“Sir or Harry. Don’t worry, I remember my choices.” Eggsy replies, smirking. For just a moment Harry’s eyes go dark, just as they did on the day he first said that to him, and then it is gone again, leaving Eggsy to wonder if he imagined it or if he was only remembering his own reaction to the conversation.

“Cheeky little shit. I was going to offer my guest room to you. You will be able to see JB, and I am not ashamed to admit that I am not willing to let you out of my sight just yet. But, if all you’re going to offer is cheek, I shall have to rescind the offer and tell JB his Da cannot behave, and therefore will not be seeing him.”

“I can come stay with you?”

“Yes, Eggsy, of course you can, for as long as you want. If you would like, you can go grab your things from your room while I call us one of our cabs. I’ll be waiting right here when you come back. Amenable?”

“Yes, Harry!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that is reading, kudos-ing, and commenting. As always, if you see an edit I missed let me know. Two more chapters to go, and I promise, it will earn it's rating.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Eggsy finally get a few things off their chests and Merlin finds those letters Harry has been hiding.

Harry is, as promised, waiting for Eggsy when he comes back from cleaning out his room at the hotel. He could not believe Eggsy thought that after all of this time being apart, he would let him go back to some dingy hotel room, alone, while Harry went back to his house in the Mews, alone. To have had Eggsy so near, in his very arms just hours before, and then to have him half a city away? Harry finds the thought reprehensible. 

Eggsy comes bounding into his field of vision and stops in front of him where he is waiting next to a black Kingsman cab that is idling on the street. Harry reaches out and opens the door.

“After you, Eggsy.”

Eggsy’s cheeks pink and he smiles at Harry. “Were you born this fucking polite, bruv?”

“No, it’s usually a lot harder than it looks. Let’s just say you bring out the best in me.”

They spend the cab ride mostly in silence, Eggsy staring out the window as London goes by and Harry staring at him, watching the lights and darkness play across his skin, not even looking embarrassed when he is caught out looking.

Eggsy nudges him with his foot. “Are you trying to be a creep?”

“Not at all. It’s just that believing you dead for so long has made me want to look my fill of you, and I am not even close to being full yet.” That lovely tension between them, while not as distinct as it was before, still slowly simmers below the surface.

When they get to Harry’s Eggsy takes his stuff to the guest and then settles in on the living room floor with JB. Harry busies himself with making tea. He needs something stronger, lord knows, but he also needs the comfort of tea right now. Emotional day indeed, perhaps he should go find a pub of ruffians to burn off some steam.

“Don’t forget the biscuits, Haz."

Harry rolls his eyes.

“Can hear you doing that all the way in here Haz, or, sorry, _Sir_ ,” Eggsy purrs.

Harry’s hands grip the countertop so hard he thinks there may be indentations when he removes him. He cannot go five minutes in Eggsy’s company without worrying about ruining the line of his trousers. That boy is _infuriating_. Harry adores him.

Harry brings out the tea tray, the thrice-damned biscuits, and fixes both his own tea and Eggsy’s.

Eggsy takes a sip and closes his eyes. “God, no one fixes a cup of tea like you Harry. Over in the States the only tea I could get was some hot water with a stale tea bag in it. I would have killed to get some of yours, dreamed about it, swear down.”

“Well, it’s here now, and I will make you as much as you like.” Harry places his teacup down on the table. “There is something I would like to discuss with you actually, if you wouldn’t mind doing so.”

Eggsy sighs. “I figured as much.” Eggsy catches Harry’s uncomfortable expression. “No, it’s fine Harry, we are a little overdue for a talk, but we are going to need something a bit stronger than tea for this, yeah? So’s how about I finish this really fucking good tea, I take this fat little shite for a walk,” JB hops up at the word, “cause he needs it, we are definitely talking about his eating habits, bruv, and while I am gone you break out the good stuff.”

“Agreed,” Harry says.

They finish their tea in a comfortable silence, except for the sound of Eggsy eating his way through half a sleeve of biscuits. After Eggsy’s finishes, or possibly because he is tired of the sad eyes he is getting from JB, he takes the dog for a walk. Harry hides a biscuit behind a magazine to give to the little beast later. Eating all those biscuits in front of JB and not even offering him one? Honestly, what kind of father _is_ Eggsy?

By the time Eggsy gets back, Harry has whiskey poured into two glasses, with the full decanter sitting in between them. Eggsy walks right in, goes right for the hidden biscuit and gives it to JB. Harry’s eyes are wide.

“For a spy, you’re a bit obvious.”

“Well, you can’t just take away everything from the poor thing, can you? He deserves his treats.” Harry says, smiling as JB hops up on the couch and settles in next to Harry. “He knows which side his bread is buttered on.”

“He’s a traitor, his is.”

Eggsy picks up his whiskey and settles down on the opposite end of the couch, leaning forward so that he can pet JB while he drinks. Harry can smell the faint ghost of a cigarette coming from Eggsy’s clothes. He doesn’t mind as much as he thought he would.

Eggsy takes a long drink from his glass. “Alright then, let’s get this over with.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “I would really like to know why on earth you would ever believe that we, and by that I mean, Merlin, Roxanne, and I, would have ever betrayed you like that.”

“Really Harry, and I ain’t saying this to be cheeky, but you can’t see why I would have believed that?” Eggsy is looking at him incredulously.

“No, I can’t really say that I can.”

“Are you thick, bruv? I mean look at me.” Harry opens his mouth to speak. “No, I mean look at me, not the boy you grew to… well, whatever you did…” Eggsy flaps his hand, “over training, or even the boy you thought you had a duty to save because of a debt owed to his dead dad. I mean look at who I am. I am a rent boy from the wrong side of the street ain’t I? I was a drug runner, hired muscle when it was called for, and a thief. Now I ain’t saying I did the majority of that by my own choice, but some of it I did. I ain’t ashamed at doing what I needed to keep my family safe and fed. And over in the States, I did it all over again, mate, and that _was_ by my own choice, I did it to stay alive.

“It was always in the back of my mind that there was something that was too good to be true about some handsome, posh fucker swooping in to carry me away like some sort of damsel out of the dirt. Our,” Eggsy pauses, trying to think of a word, “ _disagreement_ before I left only hammered that home for…” 

“Yes, about that.” Harry starts. 

“Jesus, Harry, what happened to manners? I’m still talking, and we will get back to that in a bit, yeah?”

“Apologies.”

“Thanks. Now as I was saying,” Eggsy knocks back the rest of his drink and Harry refills his glass, “it hammered that feeling home for me. And when I woke up and no one was there to get me, just some arsehole giving voice to every shite thought I already had in my head, what else was I supposed to believe?” 

“I would have expected you to know that I, we, thought more of you than that, Eggsy,” Harry replies with some heat in his voice. He refills his glass as well. 

Eggsy stands, his shoulders rigid, and walks a few steps away from Harry, his back to him and his trembling hands fiddling with knick knacks on the mantle. “How was I supposed to know that? I mean, Roxy, yeah, she was one of the holes in Gwaine’s story, to be honest. I just could not, or would not, believe that she would have fucked me over like that…” 

Harry’s glass hits the table with a little more force than he intended and whiskey spills out of the side to land on the table’s surface. “But you would believe that of _me_?” Harry is incredulous. He stands and begins to pace. How he could even _think_ that of Harry, how he could believe… 

“I didn’t want to, Harry.” Eggsy tosses his cap away and runs his fingers through his hair. His voice is angry and brittle. “Fuck, this was not how I wanted this conversation to go, but the trains out of the station now, ain't it? But in our last conversation you made it clear that we were not equals, didn’t ya? Made it clear you wouldn’t even think about touching me till we were ‘equals.’” 

“That is not what I meant and you know that, Eggsy.” Harry stalks around the room, taking off his jacket and tie, loosening a few buttons on his shirt. His hands tear through his hair. He has to regain some composure. It is too fucking hot in here.

“I didn’t know shite. All I knew was that there was something between us, or at least I thought there was, and then when I finally make a go of it, you push me away with some bullshite excuse. And then I up and get shot, and no one comes for me. How the fuck was I supposed to know that was standard protocol? All I knew was that I needed you and you weren’t fucking there. For all I knew life went on as normal once I was gone, everybody having a grand old time without the dirty pleb running around mucking everything up." 

Harry rounds on Eggsy, his hair falling over his face, pulled from its normal styling. “You want to know how normal things were for me, you little shit? It was so normal for me that I had to be taken off of fieldwork when I completely fucked the mission that resulted in your friend from the estates being killed because I lost it and thought he was you. I was holding his dead body, covered in his brains and blood and bits of his skull, crying over him and calling your name.” Harry steps closer to Eggsy, forcing him back a few steps. Eggsy’s back hits the wall. “Roxanne had to dart me to get me out of there. 

“It was so normal that I couldn’t even hold a gun without vomiting all over my shoes. Merlin had to take my guns from my house one night because he and Percival were scared that I would end up eating a bullet if I kept going the way I was. And I would have.” Eggsy pales, his throat working as he swallows. “It was so _fucking normal_ that I didn’t wash the fucking sheets you slept on before the dog test because I couldn’t bear the thought of them not smelling like you. I fucking _loved_ you Eggsy, and seeing you die shattered me. I have never been more broken than I have been since the day I lost you." 

Eggsy looks at him, his eyes wide. “What do you mean, you saw me die? What do you fucking mean?” 

“Merlin had patched through your feed to my computer in my office. I couldn’t speak to you because Chester was on the line, but I wanted to see your final test. You know this Eggsy, you know I saw the Church, I said as much to Chester on the feed you watched.” 

“I didn’t realize you actually watched the whole goddamn thing while it was happening! So’s you just sat there and watched me slaughter a fucking church full of people, get shot in the head, and did nothing? Jesus, Harry!” Eggsy makes a move to get past him. “I need a fucking smoke. Get the fuck out of my way.” 

Harry braces one hand on either side of Eggsy on the wall and cages him in with his arms. “No, you fucking don’t. This whole mess started because you couldn’t be arsed to talk about something like a fucking adult. So this time you are going to stand here and listen to me for a second.” Eggsy goes to knock his arms down, a move that Harry easily counters. “If you think for one fucking moment you can take me in a fight, you had best think again. You will listen to me.” Eggsy stills, his arms crossed, eyes on the floor and his jaw set. 

“Fine, say what you have to fucking say.” 

“Yes, Eggsy I watched everything that happened inside that church. I watched you walk out and get shot in the head. And after, I went to Chester’s office, as you have already seen, and slit his throat for what he did to you. Now, you will have to forgive me for not hopping on a plane and coming for your body, protocols be damned, but we had a fucking world to save. I am afraid, despite my feelings to the contrary, that that outweighed the need to come gather you. Look at me Eggsy.” Eggsy stares resolutely at the floor. Harry grabs his chin and forces Eggsy to look him in the eyes. “But know this, had I known you were alive, I would have waged a trail of blood through anyone who sought to keep me from you, _anyone_. I would have come for you no matter what the cost. Had I even had an inkling you had survived that bullet I would have let the world eat itself through that signal if it meant I could get to you.” 

“You fucker…” Eggsy’s hands come up and Harry thinks he is about to get thrown to the floor, but Eggsy grabs him by the shirt and hauls him forward into a feverish kiss. This time he doesn’t push Eggsy away. This time he wraps one hand around Eggsy’s nape, squeezing possessively while the other reaches around to the small of the boy’s back, holding him in position. It’s not what Harry wanted for their first kiss, or even what is technically their second if you count the fitting room, it is not filled with sweetness and love he had always envisioned it to be. No, this is filled with teeth and pain and hurt and anger. It is loss and betrayal, no matter if it was real or perceived. It is biting and nails digging into flesh. It is harsh and unforgiving. It is absolutely fucking _glorious_. 

Harry moves both his hands down, grabs Eggsy by the arse, and lifts. Eggsy obliges him by jumping up and wrapping his legs around his waist. For a moment, Harry gives a thought to what this may do to his back come morning but disregards it as soon as Eggsy’s teeth find his neck. He walks them up the stairs, kicks open his bedroom door, and then kicks it closed behind them. It certainly won’t do to have JB’s cold nose poking him in the arse in the middle of what Harry has planned, oh no. 

He throws Eggsy down on the bed, anger and adrenaline still coursing through him. Eggsy bounces once and looks up at him. 

“I am going to fucking wreck you, you mouthy little shit.” 

“Bring it on old man, if you think you can keep it up after all that whiskey.”

Harry begins stripping, quickly and efficiently. “I suggest you take off your clothes unless you want them ripped from you.”

Eggsy hurries out of his clothes until he is naked on the bed. His cock is already so hard it is lying flat against his stomach. Eggsy looks him in the eye as he gives himself a couple of slow strokes. Harry rakes his eyes down his body, admiring him for just a moment before he descends upon him. 

It is just as furious as it was downstairs. They kiss and bite and suck at any flesh they can get to. Harry fumbles with the bedside table drawer, pulling out the lube and a condom before moving his way down Eggsy’s body, sucking dark marks into the boy’s chest, stomach and thighs. Eggsy hisses, his hands finding Harry’s hair and pulling. 

“Jesus, Harry,” he moans. “God.” 

Harry raises his head. “No, you only say my name, Eggsy. _My_ name.” 

“Harry, please,” he moans again, bucking his hips up. 

Harry squeezes some lubricant on his fingers and circles them around Eggsy’s hole, sinking one finger into the second knuckle while licking at Eggsy’s cock. Eggsy instantly bears down, forcing his finger in the rest of the way. 

“Yeah, come on, yeah,” Eggsy chants. Harry adds another, watching Eggsy greedily suck them both into his body. He pulls the head of Eggsy’s cock onto his mouth, setting a brisk, if not sloppy, rhythm. He is too far gone for his usual finesse.

Once he is three fingers deep into Eggsy’s arse, he quickly pulls them out, rolls a condom on and slicks himself up. He grabs Eggsy’s right thigh with his hand, bending it towards his chest, exposing Eggsy completely. With the other hand he drags his cock up and down the crack of Eggsy’s arse, enjoying the way the hole flutters and grabs at him, as if trying to pull him inside of its own volition. 

“Come on, Harry, fuck!” 

Harry pushes in on the next pass, slowing sliding in until his bollocks are pressed flush against Eggsy. It is sweeter than he imagined. Despite the prep, Eggsy is still vise tight around his cock and hotter than a flame. Harry grips the base of his cock and squeezes once before he embarrasses himself. 

“Yesssss…..” is all Eggsy can say as he slides in. 

Harry falls forward, his arms under Eggsy’s knees, folding him almost in half, and begins fucking him in earnest. Eggsy reaches down, his nails dragging up and down Harry’s thighs. They kiss messily as the headboard knocks rhythmically against the wall.

No words are spoken, no endearments, expressions of love and tenderness. Just grunts and gasps and _oh my god, Harry, fuck me, just like that, harder_. 

Harry slips his arms out from under Eggsy’s knees and brackets Eggsy’s face. “Look at me, Eggsy. Look at me while I am fucking you. Look at me and know who you belong to.” 

Eggsy throws back his head, moans deep in back of throat, and then opens his eyes to look at Harry. His legs wrap around Harry’s back, his feet digging into the small of it, urging him to go deeper, faster. His hands leave Harry’s thighs to clench onto his back, holding on.

“Fuck Harry, fuck, I’m going to come, Jesus. _Harry_.”

“Come on my cock, Eggsy. Come for me.” Harry angles his hips, searching for just the right angle to make Eggsy see God. He must find it because Eggsy’s whole body goes rigid, his mouth forming a perfect O, but his eyes never leave Harry’s even as he starts to come apart beneath him. Eggsy’s muscles flutter around Harry and he grits his teeth, determined not to come himself until he has thoroughly fucked Eggsy through his orgasm. Wetness coats their stomachs, and Eggsy goes limp beneath him. 

Free to chase his own orgasm now that Eggsy has gone boneless, he snaps his hips ruthlessly, ignoring Eggsy’s small cries of what has to be overstimulation. Six thrusts later, he is pumping himself deep into Eggsy’s body, his teeth fastened onto Eggsy’s shoulder. He kisses Eggsy as he comes down, and as he feels himself soften, he slips out, ties off the condom and throws it somewhere in the vicinity of the trash. He reaches down to the floor, grabs his shirt and uses it to quickly clean both himself and Eggsy up. They will definitely need a shower in the morning, but right now he can’t be too fucked to care, or he is too well fucked to care. Semantics.

He maneuvers Eggsy under the covers, and gets in behind him, pulling him possessively against his chest with an arm around his waist. Eggsy turns his head to give him one more sleepy, messy kiss, which he returns happily. He buries his face into Eggsy’s nape, breathing in the scent of Eggsy’s cheap cologne and his own expensive one mingling, ran through with the smell of sex.

He sleeps.

He wakes as light filters into the room and touches his eyes. For a moment he is disoriented by the feeling of a warm body in the bed next to him until he remembers the night before. The argument, Eggsy coming apart under him, falling asleep wrapped around Eggsy.

They had separated at some point during the night, and now Eggsy sleeps on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes to hide them from the light. He pulls the sheet back to look at the boy. He will admit that he lost himself last night but he didn’t realize how much till he sees the evidence painted across Eggsy’s skin. Love bites cover his chest and hips, and a particularly livid one graces his left shoulder. Harry remembers biting him there as he came inside Eggsy’s tight, clenching body. His cock definitely remembers it as well if how it is fattening up against his thighs is any indication. Good god, he feels like he is eighteen again.

He presses a kiss to Eggsy’s temple and gets out of bed to head into the ensuite. As he stands he feels the muscles in his back pull slightly along with a slight stinging. When he gets into the bathroom he looks in the mirror and is gratified to realize Eggsy left marks of his own. His back looks like he went three rounds with a hellcat, scratches up and down it from Eggsy’s nails. He will have to put some disinfectant on them later, perhaps after a long and thorough shower with his very naked new lover. For now, though, he pops a couple of painkillers for the back, brushes his teeth and has a piss, interested only in getting back into bed. As he comes back into the room, he finds Eggsy sitting up and looking down at his chest, his eyes big.

“Ah, Eggsy, I feel the need to apologize for last night, I…”

Eggsy’s eyes snap up to his, shuttering completely. He quickly gets out of bed, gingerly, Harry notices, and starts snapping up his clothes. “Right. I’ll just get out of your way then. We can chalk it up to whiskey and anger. Never has to happen again.”

Harry is distinctly wrong-footed, still groggy with sleep and standing there with his cock hanging out. “What are you talking about?”

“This, you’re sorry for this,” Eggsy waves his hand in between them, “and I don’t blame you. I mean, you said you wanted us to be equals before something like this happened and now that I am a half blind cripple, we can’t be that now, yeah? So I’ll just clear off, head back to the hotel.”

Harry seriously debates smacking the boy, with affection of course, but a smack nonetheless. Perhaps on that pert little arse of his. “Eggsy.”

“It’s cool, Harry, we can still be friends, ok?”

Harry becomes more exasperated. “Eggsy, will you stop for a moment?”

“I ain’t mad, bruv, swear down.” Eggsy has found almost all of his clothes and was trying to pull them on.

“Eggsy!”

Eggsy stops and looks up. His hands tremble.

“If you will stop being an arse and listen to me for a moment.” He walks over and takes Eggsy’s face in his hands. “I was apologizing for my lack of gentlemanly behavior last night.” His eyes drift over Eggsy’s chest where his marks bloom like dangerous flowers, he has to admit, he is not _completely_ sorry for them. He looks owned and Harry likes it, quite a bit. “I was rougher than I would have liked to have been, but I am not sorry it happened, not at all. When I said I wanted us to be equals, I meant that I didn’t want to take advantage while you were still a candidate. Chester would have used anything, especially any hint of impropriety between us, to try and remove you from the trials. That is _all_ I meant. I do not regret last night in the least, and would like very much for it to happen again, frequently, to tell the truth.” 

Eggsy looks up at him, searching his face for a moment. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Now, please, go brush your teeth, your breath smells like JB shat in your mouth overnight and I had a few plans for this morning that involved quite a bit of kissing and ending with your cock in my mouth.”

Eggsy smiles slowly before leaning up and kissing Harry, shit breath and all. Harry allows it and grimaces just a little when he pulls back. “Cheeky,” Harry says, delivering that smack to the boy’s arse as he walks away. It jiggles nicely from the blow and Harry’s cock is definitely interested now.

“Why don’t you get back into bed then? I’ll be back in a tick.”

While Eggsy is freshening up, Harry slides back into bed and calls Merlin. “I won’t be back to the manor today, and I expect no interruptions until tomorrow unless Valentine somehow resurrects himself and shows up at the Palace, understood?”

“Thank god. I thought I would have to watch you two simper at each other for months before anything happened. Of course, now, I expect I’ll have to watch you two make sheep eyes from across the table. I honestly don’t know which one will be worse.”

“Oh please, you’re so happy for me you’re positively bursting. That is your _I’m so happy for my oldest and dearest friend that I am positively bursting_ voice and you know it.”

“Oh, aye. I think I’ll celebrate by making the candidates run the obstacle course until one of them pukes.”

“Good man.”

“I look forward to seeing you both at 8 am sharp. If the boy can still walk straight I will assume that you have lost your touch.”

“He’s not walking straight now, Gregor.”

“For fuck's sake Harry, I did _not_ need that information. I wonder if I can amnesia dart myself and forget this conversation or the image of your wrinkled arse in the throes of passion.”

“Pfft, it’s the most action you’ve seen in years. Why don’t you go ask Percival out for drinks? Seems a shame only one of us is getting laid. You still have a few years left in you, if it hasn’t fallen off from disuse.”

“Good morning, Harry. I will see you tomorrow. Try to not break your hip.”

Harry chuckles as he takes his glasses off and sets them on the table next to the bed. Eggsy comes out of the bathroom, walking with a very slight limp. _Walking straight indeed_ , Harry thinks.

“So Merls is into Percy huh?” Eggsy asks as he slides into bed with Harry.

“Eggsy, my sweet, if you breathe a word of that you can expect to find yourself drugged and left in France with nothing but a broken compass and a plastic fork.” Harry looks up at the ceiling and pretends to think. “You may or may not be wearing pants depending on the time of year.”

“Well, see, one of the benefits of the whole brain injury thing is that my short term memory is a bit shite, so as long as I am _sufficiently_ distracted,” his hand finds Harry’s cock beneath the sheet and gives it a squeeze, “I usually forget things pretty easily.”

Harry pulls Eggsy’s face to his with a hand on his neck while his other slides around his hip, probing where Eggsy is still relaxed from the night before. “Oh, I am positive by the end of the day the only thing you will be able to remember is my name, you’ll be screaming it often enough after all.”

Eggsy’s eyes flutter. “Fuck. A dirty old man is what you are.”

“You haven’t even scratched the surface of my depravity when it comes to you, my darling,” Harry says as he presses their lips together.

—————

The next morning Harry is riding on a wave of bliss so high that he is convinced he floats into the manor. Eggsy is by his side, dressed in black wool trousers, matching waistcoat, and a green button up that makes his eyes the most intense shade of green that Harry ever remembers seeing. ( _I might have done a little shopping after I spoke to you, yeah?_ is all Eggsy says when he is surprised to see the clothes emerge from Eggsy’s suitcase). Harry, in a moment of whimsy, a word he hates but which is apt, matched his pocket square to Eggsy’s outfit.

Eggsy, while technically not yet a Kingsman, comes in him so he can kick around the place, getting used to the new people, talking to the old, and try to decide if he has any preference as to which part of Kingsman he ends up in. Harry knows that Merlin has already been thinking about adding him to Avalon as a handler or even letting Eggsy co-train new recruits with him.

They step off the train and make their way to Harry’s office, staring besottedly at one another, Harry is sure, and all around making a spectacle of themselves. Arthur and his lover who returned from the dead. He has to admit, the day is just going along swimmingly.

Until he walks into the office.

Until he sees Merlin, his face as thunderous and as vicious as the hawk which he shares his name with.

Until he sees a stack of envelopes made of creamy white card stock sitting neatly next to a fully loaded tea tray.

Merlin leans against the front of Harry’’s desk, his long legs stretched out in front of him, dressed in black trousers and a black cashmere jumper, white shirt, and a deep red tie knotted about his throat. He hugs his tablet to his chest, but it’s not a gesture of a man needing the comfort of a familiar object. It is the gesture of a man gripping something tightly enough to keep him from beating someone else to death.

“Ah, Arthur, late as usual. I said eight, and I expected you at least by half eight. Instead, it’s nine. Let’s hope the tea is still hot. Good morning Eggsy, glad to see you can still walk.”

Eggsy laughs nervously, which is an under reaction to Merlin’s countenance in Harry’s opinion, but the boy wouldn’t know that. “I’ll just go find Roxy, yeah? You two obviously have something to discuss.”

“No, Eggsy, I think you will want to hear this. In fact, I guarantee it.” Merlin replies.

“Nonsense, Merlin, let the boy go find Roxanne.”

Merlin turns back and looks at Harry. Harry shuts his mouth and sits down on one of the chairs Harry has reserved for guests. He isn’t brave enough to go behind the desk. As Merlin gets angrier, his brogue, usually coloring his speech, seems to disappear until he speaks almost perfect Queen’s English. And then, when he finally blows nuclear, the brogue comes back full force until you would swear the man was screaming Gaelic at you. They were at the Queen’s English stage, Harry prayed they did not make it to the Gaelic. He thought about wrapping his tie around strategic parts of his head just to give him a little more protection in case Merlin brought a gun with him. His hand twitches towards his neck unconsciously. 

“I see you are understanding the gravity of the situation, Arthur. That is very good.” Merlin smiles. Harry thinks he might vomit.

Eggsy tries to diffuse the tense situation that has him completely confused by saying brightly, “Tea?”

“That’s a wonderful idea, lad. Sit, and I will pour, hmm? Yes, right there in the chair next to Harry, I want to make sure I have your complete attention.”

Harry accepts his tea from Merlin and takes a fortifying sip. Eggsy’s hands are trembling enough now that the cup rattles in its saucer. _That won’t do_ , Harry thinks, _not at all_. Merlin trying to intimidate him is one thing, but Eggsy having undue stress set upon him is quite another indeed.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Merlin. Speak your mind already.”

Merlin sets down his tea, takes off his glasses, and picks up the pile of letters. Harry sets his tea down as well. He wants both his hands free at this point.

“Harry, I am your oldest friend, am I not? In fact, I don’t think I would be remiss in calling myself your closest friend, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Also, I am Merlin in this organization, yes? Second in command to Arthur, the backbone of the organization, someone who has to know everything that is going on as it pertains to Kingsman in order to keep everyone safe. Would you say this is true?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Excellent. Then why in the FECKIN’ HELL was I not told about these…” Merlin tosses the handful of envelopes at Harry, hitting him square in the chest. _Shit, there’s the brogue_ , Harry thinks. Harry doesn’t flinch, it wouldn’t do to show weakness at this point.

Eggsy yells, “Oi! What the fuck, mate?”

“…FECKIN’ letters then?”

Eggsy reaches down on grabs one of the envelopes that have fallen on the floor, his eyebrows raising as he reads the few sentences contained therein, and then reaches for another, and another, and another. His face grows as dark as Merlin’s.

“What the fuck is all this shite then, Harry?” Eggsy demands.

“It’s nothing. Every Arthur receives threats like these, its part and parcel of the job. I am sure it is nothing to worry about. And how, pray tell, Merlin, did you find these? You aren’t happy with having eyes in my house, you have to go snooping about the office when I am not around like some petty thief?”

“Oh no, Harry, you will not turn this about on me, not this time. I was in here looking for the mission you signed off on for Percival that you never forwarded to me. You didn’t hide the things to feckin’ hard, did you?”

“I shouldn’t have to hide anything in my own fucking office, thank you very much.”

“You shouldn’t have hidden them at all!” Merlin shouts, standing up and pacing about the room. “I have to worry about you eating one of your own fecking bullets during those months we thought Eggsy was gone, but we got past that and I thought you were safe. But I didn’t know that some faceless fucker was sending you death threats via prose, now did I? I don’t know whether to be more offended that as your friend you did not tell me, or you let me, as Merlin, not know about a threat to you, and by association, the very organization we have both given our lives and our loyalty to. And the fact you’re not even denying that you hid them galls me even more. How much of a death wish did you have you absolutely heartless bastard? God, I can barely stand to be in the same room as you right now. Fuck.” Merlin throws his hands up violently while he paces.

“Merlin, I think you are overreacting. As I said, all Arthur’s have gotten death threats before.”

Eggsy is silent, sitting next to Harry, his arms crossed and a vein in his temple throbbing ominously.

“No, Harry, they haven’t, not like this. They have had things mailed to the shop, possibly, on a very few rare occasions, sent to their homes, or even, on the most memorable occasion, Chester got a death threat in the form of an agent returned to the manor who died as soon as he walked through the doors of medical choking on his on blood while trying to vomit up a small, spiked titanium ball that contained the fecking death threat. But do you know what makes these even more frightening than all of those put _to-fecking-gether_?” Merlin stops in front of Harry, leans down and places his hands on the chair’s armrest, almost nose to nose with him.

“I have a feeling you are going to tell me.”

“Every single piece of mail that comes into this manor goes through Avalon where it is scanned, black-lighted, and examined within an inch of its life. All, and I do mean _all_ , correspondence for Arthur is sent to me personally before it gets to you to safeguard from this very thing. And you know what? I have never seen these envelopes before, ever, so that means it was not sent from outside the manor. _These came from inside_ , Harry. Do you hear me? _Inside_.”

Harry pales. “I guess I did not think about that.”

“No, I guess you fecking did not. I also guess you did not deem me, this organization, or your life as important enough to be taken seriously either.”

“Merlin, I…”

Merlin stands and resumes his angry pacing. “No, Harry. I can’t hear any more excuses right now. I am taking these to Avalon to be analyzed so we can see what exactly, if anything, we can glean from them. I will let you know what we can find. Until then I am confining you to your rooms here at the manor. I will not risk you until we know what, or who, we are dealing with.”

Harry stands and straightens his cuffs. “You certainly will not.”

Merlin walks over to Harry until they are standing chest to chest. “I certainly fucking will. You are lucky I don’t stick you in a bulletproof cell in the basement, but I trust you will let me know of any pertinent information from this point on. And if we do have a mole, we cannot let on that we know something is going on. We will simply say that you are staying here while for Eggsy’s sake, who is staying here while we find him a flat. I will hear no argument from you, and I do expect at this point, Eggsy will help me take any measures I need to take to keep you here.”

“Too fucking right, guv.”

“Glad to see one of you has some fecking sense.”

Eggsy gathers the letters up and hands them to Merlin.

“I’ll be in Avalon. Good morning, Arthur, Eggsy.” Merlin turns on his heel and storms out.

“Eggsy, surely you must see that all of this is not…”

“I can’t even fucking look at you right now, Harry. I mean, I understand you not telling me, I mean we just got back on speaking terms, yeah? But not to tell Merlin about threats, fucking plural Harry, on your life is too much. I am going to Avalon to see if I can help Merlin. I’ll be back when I have cooled off a bit.”

“Eggsy…” Harry is seized by fear, knowing what happened the last time they left an argument unsettled.

Eggsy realizes the same thing at the same time. He turns before he walks out the door. “I’ll be back, Harry, but only after I cooled down. Just do your Arthur shit and wait on me, ok? I _will_ be back this time. I just need some air.”

Harry watches Eggsy follow Merlin out of the room and hears him call to the other man to wait for him. Harry picks up his now tepid tea, and sips it, wondering if he has not only ruined his dearest friendship but his very fragile, whatever it is, with Eggsy as well.

—————

Merlin is storming back to Avalon so he can sit in his office and stew when he hears Eggsy call out to him.

“Wait up, guv!”

Merlin halts, giving the lad time to catch up. He is not so unobservant that he did not see how gingerly Eggsy was sitting in the office. If he hadn’t had been so mad he would have given Harry a clap on the shoulder and a knowing look. Last night had been a long time coming and he was happy Harry had gotten his miracle in the end. Those months Eggsy was “dead” were some of the scariest he had ever known in his long friendship with Harry. He would never admit to it, but there were nights he went to bed knowing that he would wake in the morning and Harry would have followed Eggsy into the dark. Every morning Harry walked into the office he gave thanks to the old gods that he had been wrong.

“I’ll thank you to remember my name Eggsy, I will not tell you again.”

“Sorry, Merlin. Old habits.”

The actual contriteness in Eggsy’s voice shocks Merlin into realizing he is coming across scarier than he intends. After all, it is not Eggsy’s fault that Harry is a stubborn, secret keeping, absolute _prick_. He starts to walk again once Eggsy has reached him, shortening his strides for the other.

“Apologies Eggsy, it is not you I am angry at. However, I am curious to know why you’re not in still in Harry’s office, comforting him after I told him exactly what I thought.”

“You’re not the only one that’s a little pissed right now. Like I told him, not telling me is expected, since I just got back in the game so to speak, but him not telling you, either as a friend or Merlin? That is fucked up, mate, seriously, so I told him I needed to cool off for a bit. I thought I would come down to the caves…er, Avalon, with you and see if I could help out, yeah?”

“Actually, that is a great idea, there is something I need to talk with you and this is as good as time as ever. We will discuss it in my office.”

They finish the walk to Avalon in silence. Once inside, Merlin calls for his three most trusted people.

“Morgana, Elyan, Ygraine.” His three most trusted workers come to him. Morgana and Ygraine are sisters, Irish Twins to be exact, and are dressed all in black, the only way to tell them apart half the time, unless you’re Merlin, is by their hair. Morgana favors pastel colors and is currently sporting a cotton candy pink bob, while Ygraine, the darker of the two has black with gray streaks. Elyan, a man in his thirties, is dressed more in line with what Kingsman would like their employees to wear, in dark gray trousers and a jumper. Honestly, Merlin could give two fucks what his people wear as long as they get the job done. His lack of demand for a formal dress code is one of the secrets to the loyalty of his team, and no Arthur in the history of Kingsman has been able to get him to budge on it. Thankfully Harry concurs with him, one less fight in the long run.

“I need you three to run a full battery of tests on these letters, and when you finish, run them again. I need to know everything you can find out. What ink and paper have been used, where they can be bought, if there are prints, which I doubt, DNA from the saliva in the envelopes. Literally anything and everything you can tell me.” He looks at them in turn as they nod. “This is your eyes only, no one but you three sees, touches, and performs the tests. This takes priority one over anything else you are working on. Let Elaine know that she will be in charge until either you three finish or until I come back to take over. Away with you.”

Before they turn to leave, Morgana gives Eggsy a once over and a sly smile. “It’s the boy who lived. Welcome back, sir, we look forward to handling you ourselves.”

Merlin glares at her while Eggsy chokes on his own spit and blushes.

The three hurry off and Merlin turns to Eggsy. “Now, lad, if you will follow me to my office.”

Once they are inside, Merlin goes straight to his desk, pulls out a bottle and two glasses, and pours them a drink. He pushes Eggsy’s glass towards him.

“A bit early ain’t it, bruv?”

“Fine, give me yours then.”

“No way, I was just making an observation, I wasn’t complaining. So’s what’s all this about then?”

“Let’s get a something out of the way first.” 

Eggsy sits back in his chair. 

“Now, as pissed as I am at Harry right now, he is my oldest and dearest friend. I love that man more than I love my own flesh and blood, so if this thing you two have started is just a bit of fun you’re having until something better comes along, then I suggest you get the fuck out right now. If you hurt him I will kill you, and you know that is not an idle threat when it comes from me. I will make it hurt and I will take my time. I was prepared to carry through on this threat when I thought you were a danger to him before and it is one I will happily carry through now if needed. Are we clear on that?” 

“Merlin,” Eggsy says, leaning forward and looking the other man straight in the eye, “I lied when I said I came back to England because I missed the fucking tea, yeah? I came back, because even when I believed he wanted me dead, I could not stop thinking about Harry. God, when he walked into the house that night I was there, you know why I stayed hid so long?” Merlin shakes his head. “I stayed hid because just hearing him dodder about the house made me feel at home and safe for the first time since I left this fucking manor. I had to wait to speak to him until I knew I wasn't going to throw myself at his feet the minute he looked at me. 

“That man back there, for all his sheer fucking stupidity, is like air for me. If he and I aren’t together in the future, it will not be by my choice. And when he dies from old fucking age, you best order a coffin big enough for two, because there is no life for me without him.” 

Merlin looks at Eggsy, searching for any hint of a lie in his face. Finding nothing, he nods once and goes back to his drink.

“Were you really going to kill me, bruv?” 

“You broke into Harry’s house and shot at him, I was going to erase you from existence.”

“Good, glad to see we are on the same page.”

“However, I am happy I didn’t need to.” 

“Not as happy as me, mate.” Eggsy raises his glass and smiles. Merlin's face twitches in return. 

“Now, on to business. I wasn’t lying when I said these threats worry me. Harry was right; Arthur is always the target of our enemies, more so when they are former agents with the successful mission tally that Harry has. He has a great many enemies that would be tempted to take him out before, but now that they also have the ability to cut us off at our knees by taking out our King, his death is even more desirable. But still, a few threats here and there would not be cause for much alarm. 

“But what worries me is that these have come from the inside. Whoever is threatening Harry has somehow managed to get to him from inside the organization, bypassing all of our internal security, and I’ll be damned if I know how they are doing it.” 

“So what can I do?” 

“I am enacting an old bylaw in our organization. In times of great threat to Arthur’s life, a member of the Table was chosen to be Arthur’s bodyguard, he was with him at all times, and promised to do everything in his power to keep Arthur safe from harm, even if giving up his own life in order for that to happen.” 

“But I ain’t a member of the Table anymore Merlin, never was in fact.” 

“Well, I am superseding the Table in this decision. They can, if they so choose, argue about it later.” He notices Eggsy looking at him questioningly. “Yes, Eggsy, I have a lot more power, or the seat of Merlin has a lot more power, than any Arthur has ever been comfortable with. I am not only making you a knight, but I am making you Excalibur, Arthur’s sword.” 

“Fucking aces!” 

“You agree to all of this, including the part where you will die to keep him safe if needed?” 

“What part of ‘no life for me without him’ did I stutter over?” Eggsy says, cocking an eyebrow. 

“Just making sure, you cheeky little shit.” 

“But Merlin, I got to ask, are you sure I am the right one for the job? I mean, not that I ain’t grateful as fuck and all, and you know I will fucking kill anyone that even looks at Harry wrong, but my fucking hands shake and I can’t see out of one eye. I get migraines so bad I can’t get out of bed. Surely there is someone else who can actually protect Harry better than I can right now, yeah?” 

Merlin shakes a pill bottle he produced out of nowhere at him. “This Kingsman issued migraine medication. One a day and the majority of your future migraines won’t happen. We could make a fortune if we patented this. On the off chance you do get one before this is put to bed, we will make other arrangements. As for being blind and your trembling hands, your marksman scores were some of the most impressive this organization has ever seen. I am sure you could out shoot half the agents at the table with two blind eyes and hands that didn’t even work. I am sure of you lad, and I am sure of your ability to keep Harry safe. If you don’t believe in that, believe that I would never put Harry in the hands of someone who could not protect him, got it?” 

“Yes, Merlin,” Eggsy says, pinking under the praise. 

“Now, I made this decision yesterday, after I found the letters in Harry’s office. Before you go back to Harry’s office, I need you to head back to the shop. The tailors have made some new suits for you and you can also stop by the armory to arm yourself. After you are kitted out, you are to remain armed and by Harry at all times. If there are any times that you are not able to be armed,” Merlin raises his eyebrows significantly, “your guns are to be in reach at all times.

“We do not know how far this thing goes our who is involved at this point, so the only ones who will know about any of this are Harry, yourself, myself, and the three working on the threats. As far as everyone else is concerned you are staying at the manor while we find a place for you to live and figure out where you are going to be within Kingsman. And, Harry, being the besotted old man he is, cannot bear to be apart from you, so he is staying here as well.”

“Won’t it make it easier for whatever fuck is trying to get him if he’s here and it’s an inside job?”

“No, because I now have Harry under so much surveillance he won’t be able to leave his office to take a shit without me being alerted. Every time that door, or even a window, opens to allow anyone in or out, I am notified, same with every ingress and egress point in his quarters. No one can get to him without me knowing.” 

“And what about inside the office?”

“Arthur’s office is surveillance proof, the walls emit a type of scrambling frequency to prevent anyone from spying on the goings on within it, but like I said, no one can get in or out without me knowing who they are and when. Now, Harry will not like this, but he will listen unless he wants me to make good on the threat concerning the bullet proof cells in the basement. Any questions?” 

“Not right now.” 

“Good. Here are your glasses. They have a direct and private channel to me, and only me unless I transfer the feed to someone else. Harry, once we have talked to him about this, will be looped in. Now, go get in your suit, tell them to deliver the others to Harry’s quarters in the manor, and get armed. When you get back to Harry’s office, ping me and I will come up so we can explain to him how we are going to ruin his life for the foreseeable future.”

—————

Eggsy walks a fine line between still righteously pissed off and chuffed as fuck as he rides the bullet train back to the shop. Merlin is true to his word. As soon as he walks in, the tailor, a bloke Eggsy hasn’t met before, but who introduces himself as the new Gareth, immediately rushes him into the fitting room with a new suit. Three more were currently waiting to be dropped off at Harry’s quarters. Eggsy quickly changes and hands the clothes he was wearing to Gareth for delivery with his suits. Once alone in the room, he steps back to admire himself in the mirror. 

The suit is a deep green khaki, single-breasted, with an ecru shirt underneath. His brown oxfords, once he clicks the heels together, deploy the poison knife blade from within with a soft snick. His glasses, a black angular frame, the lenses slightly darkened for his eyes, well, _eye_ , complete the look. He feels every bit the Kingsman Harry once believed him to be. He had made it, he had been knighted. He wishes the circumstances were better, but he was sure this whole thing would be resolved soon enough. Once Merlin got his teeth into something, there was no letting it go until it was dead, and dead was exactly what the fuckers threatening Harry, his Harry, were going to be once he and Merlin found them. 

He heads into the armory, taking off his jacket to pull on a holster, before pulling it back on and admiring the how the jacket hangs over it, not a line out of place. He grabs a watch, a signet ring, a gun, two lighters, an ankle holster and ceramic knife for one ankle, and another with a small gun for the other. The last thing he grabs in a Rainmaker because Harry would be horrified if he did not. He welcomes the fuckers to try and get through him to Harry. 

Eggsy practically trips off the train in his haste when he makes it back to the manor. He heads to Harry’s office, knocking once and then opening the door when he hears no one answer from within. 

“Harry?” He calls as he steps into the office. He touches his glasses. “Merlin, you know where Harry went?” Eggsy asks while he walks around the office, looking under the desk on the off chance Harry drink himself to death or some such shit in the few hours he has been gone. 

_“Harry should be in his office, no one has opened that door since you left this morning until you came in just now.”_  

“Well, I am standing in his office and he is not here, not under the desk, not hiding in the fucking filing cabinet, not hanging from the ceiling. _He. Is. Not. Here._ ” He hears frantic tapping as Merlin swears in Gaelic under his breath. 

_“I am looking at all the security feeds for the entire manor right now, for the past 24 hours, and no one suspicious has entered the manor. Not only that, but no one apart from us three even came close to Harry’s door since I was seen leaving it yesterday afternoon. There is no way someone could have gotten in and gotten Harry out without us knowing about it.”_

“Well, something happened, because he’s gone, Merlin. We were supposed to be protecting him and now he’s gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to everyone who is reading, commenting and kudos-ing. Let me know if you see something I missed. One more chapter to go!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is being posted a day early because tomorrow is my husband's birthday and I don't know what we will be up to.

Harry busies himself with paperwork and sips tea to distract him from the guilt roiling in his gut. Merlin was right, he couldn’t deny having hid the letters, because as much as he wants not to admit it, in those days following Eggsy’s death he had almost wished someone would come out of the dark to put him out of his misery so that he wouldn’t have to do it himself. By the time he no longer felt that way the missives had become commonplace enough in his life that they had lost their power to worry him. It never even occurred to him to question how they were getting through Kingsman security, or wonder if that made them inherently more threatening. 

He knows he should have told Merlin, but that man would have moved him into the manor straightaway, much like he just did today, and Harry thinks that would have been the thing that would have made him go mad.

He is so engrossed in his thoughts and paper shuffling that he never hears anyone approaching him from behind until the cool barrel of a gun is pushed into the base of his skull.

“Harry, do us both a favor and raise your hands. Slowly.”

“Gwaine, I was wondering if you were the one sending me all that delightful correspondence. Really, you could have just picked up the phone of you wanted to chat.” Harry says, already thinking of all the conceivable ways he can get out of this. As he raises his hands he makes a quick movement towards his glasses.

The gun digs in deeper. “I wouldn’t if I were you. You wouldn’t want that boy of yours to come in to find the room painted in your brain matter would you? He’s due back any moment.”

“Good, we can just wait for him here then, shall we?”

“No, Harry, I am afraid not. You are coming with me so we can have that talk you just offered. Sound good?”

“Not really, I am afraid I will have to decl-“ There is a small pinch to his neck and everything goes black. 

Harry wakes some indeterminate time later in a dank, windowless room, tied to a metal chair that is screwed into the floor. The walls seem to be made out rock, and if it wasn’t for the metal door and floor, he would guess that he was in a cave. His glasses, watch, shoes, and by way of the shoes, the tracker in the left sole, suit jacket, and everything that was in his pockets are gone. He starts to roll his eyes at the sheer tediousness of it all but when he tries to his head splits apart with pain.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“Harry, welcome back. I was starting to wonder if I had killed you. Then I had to wonder how sad I was going to be if I did. Can I get you anything? Water?” Gwaine smirks at him from where he sits in the corner. Harry takes a moment to look at him. Gwaine, still handsome, has his longish blond hair pulled back into a neat tail at the base of his neck. His deep navy single breasted suit, not Kingsman issue, Harry notes, so hopefully not bulletproof, is impeccably tailored, and a manicured shadowing of facial hair highlights the man’s rugged jawline. Harry had slept with the man once, right after he joined Kingsman because Harry has a weakness for pretty, male or female, and it was the worst sex of his life. Gwaine had spent the entire time watching himself fuck Harry into the mattress in the mirror on the opposite wall. Dreadfully dull this one was.

“A gun? Your head on a pike?” Gwaine’s resemblance to the actor that never could make it through a movie or show without ending up dead, Sean something or other, was always a running joke within the manor. Once that show, _Game of Thrones_ , Harry thinks it was, came on, Gwaine couldn’t enter the manor without someone exclaiming, “Winter is coming.” Hell, the prat probably bellowed it out before every orgasm now.

“Still the same Harry I see, boring everyone out of their fucking skull with what he thinks passes for humor.”

“Let’s cut the shit, Gwaine. We aren’t here to catch up on old times. Why am I here? Why are you here, for that matter, and not sitting somewhere without that pretty head of yours?”

Gwaine feigns shock, his large hand fluttering to his chest. “Why Harry, you still think I’m pretty? Was that one night in Minsk not enough for you? Once this is all put to bed, would you like another go? I admit, you’re a little long in the tooth for me, and my tastes run a little more towards the female persuasion, but a man is a nice change once in a while. You can be rougher with them, hurt them more. And you could suck a cock like a five quid rent boy, so that is definitely a point in your favor.” Gwaine pretends to think for a moment. “As for why I still have my head, I rewired the chip to still protect me from the signal but not make my skull combust, as did my compatriots, as soon as it was put in. We knew what was coming; all we had to do was wait it out. However, I personally saw to it that Eggsy was safe from the signal, so you should be thanking me. 

“Speaking of Eggsy, did he come crawling back to you like a kicked dog, so eager to kneel,” Gwaine wiggles his eyebrows lasciviously, “at your feet, despite what I had told him? I hoped that he would be waiting for me when I got back. I thought I could use him to get into Kingsman manor once we got back to England. I suppose it was my fault he ran, though, I wasn’t expecting the guttersnipe to have a mind of his own after all.”

“I will thank you to shut your mouth about him. Eggsy is so much more than you, or your benefactor, ever gave him credit for.”

“Oh,” he claps his hands together slowly, “so you did fuck him. I had my doubts after you pushed him away before he left, but I see now that a hard prick wins out over any misgivings one may have about mixing it up with the help. I can’t blame you. Was he as tight and sweet as he looks? Shall I keep him instead of you? That boy was made for servicing his betters. I wonder how much pain it would take to break him.” Gwaine laughs when he sees Harry struggle against the ropes binding him, his face gone red with rage.

“I welcome you to try and get your hands on Eggsy, you’ll have your own bollocks fed to you by the nurses in intensive care by the time he and I are done with you.”

“I’m absolutely terrified, an old man and a half-blind rent boy.” Gwaine continues, “Enough of this, though. I need the passwords to get into the Kingsman’s secure servers. I know that only two people have them, you and Merlin.” 

“I certainly will never give you those, Gwaine. Why I am here and not Merlin? Surely he would be a better choice.” Not that Harry would rather Merlin be here than he. God knows Kingsman can survive without an Arthur, but Kingsman with no Merlin? England would literally fall.

“I thought about it. Merlin not only has the passwords, and can actually run the software I need. But have you noticed that man rarely leaves the manor, much less his little hive of freaks he calls Avalon? He was impossible to get to, unlike you, just sitting there, exactly where you needed to be, ripe for the picking. However, I am sure he and I will be able to come to some sort of accord before we are through.”

“How did you get to me, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Now that, that is a secret handed down from Arthur to Arthur, not even Merlin knows about it. But since you killed your predecessor, you were never told, something I completely counted on, and was right it seems.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry was slowly working his hands back and forth behind his back, trying to loosen the ropes.

“There is a door within the office of Arthur that only the reigning King knows about. It is a safety precaution, although it was a fucking failure this time around, at least for you.” Gwaine chuckles to himself. “The door opens into a tunnel that leads out of the manor proper, allowing Arthur to remove himself safely if the manor ever comes under attack. No one but Arthur is ever told about it in case the attack comes from the King’s own knights.”

“How did you know about it? You certainly were not Arthur.”

“No, and thank fuck for that. How do you think we got Valentine in and out of the manor without anyone ever knowing?” Gwaine fixes Harry with an appraising look. “Now Harry, now you wouldn’t be trying to keep me talking so you have a chance to work on the ropes where I can’t see them would you?”

“Not at all, Gwaine, I would expect you to know that.”

“That’s good, because I could have sworn that’s what I saw you doing in the mirror in the corner directly behind you.” Gwaine gets up and walks behind him. “Tsk. You were, Harry, and then you lied. Well, I guess the time has come for us to get on with the show anyway. Accolon, bring in the camera. We need to send our message.”

Accolon, one of the other unaccounted for knights, comes in wearing black jeans, heavy boots and a black tee that looks four sizes too small. He carries a camera and a tripod. Accolon is a big as a truck, and while not exactly ugly, he isn’t handsome either. An expert in demolitions and brute force, Accolon was sent in on "salt the earth missions" where finesse was not needed, just single-mindedness and a desire to kill whatever stood in his way. He could pass as a gentleman when needed, as long he didn’t have to say very much, but any longer than that and you might realize an explosion or two knocked a few brain cells loose. He was a necessary evil in the agency’s eyes, a leashed monster.

Cardoc walks in behind him pushing a metal cart and wearing a butcher’s apron. Cardoc is the exact opposite of Accolon, dark, whipcord thin, and almost impishly handsome. His brain was his weapon. He held a medical degree and was Kingsman’s foremost interrogator. He knew exactly how to get information out of someone with little to no blood, although he liked the blood very much. His file was rife with comments such as _excessive use of force, psychological workups recommended_. Harry quailed at the sight of him. He was able to withstand a lot, any agent had to be able to hold up under torture, but Cardoc had never failed to extract the information he was going for.

Gwaine walks to the door. “Get him ready for his close up, gentleman, but do not kill him. Yet.”

Sometime later, Gwaine comes back in. Harry’s lip is bleeding, a few teeth are loose, and his torso is one solid wall of pain from Accolon’s fists. Cardoc hasn’t even touched him yet, and for that Harry doesn’t know if that makes him more scared or thankful at this point.

“All warmed up I see. Now, let’s say hello to Merlin and Eggsy.”

Harry spits blood out of his mouth and onto Gwaine’s shoe. Gwaine backhands him.

“Do you really think Merlin is going to give you the codes and the hardware so you can finish Valentine’s plan for him? All to save me? Because you bloodied my face?”

“Harry, you have it all wrong. I have another use for you, and Accolon playing with you was just for fun. I mean, you were not the best loved of all the agents, were you? I fucking hated you. Cardoc was just here to watch, after all he has devoted his life to the study of pain. Although I admit, the tray was a nice touch. You should have seen yourself. Definitely losing your poker face in your old age.

“I want the codes and the hardware, but I have no intention of ‘finishing’ Valentine’s plan. Valentine, while he was completely fucking nuts, truly thought he was saving the world. I don’t want to save the world, old man. I want to own it. I can use the hardware to take control, through all my little puppet governments that I will put in place, of everything I see. I will start wars and end them, I will have armies of mindless killing machines at my disposal once I refine the signal. I will be unstoppable.”

“And you really think Kingsman will allow this to happen? You’re mad.”

“There won’t be a Kingsman. The first thing I am doing once I get my hands on that hardware is unleashing the signal inside these,” Harry blinks once at this phrase, _are they still in the manor?_ “walls and watching Kingsman tear itself apart. Once of course, I have Eggsy and Merlin.”

“There are more branches of Kingsman than this one. Even if we fail, others will find you.”

“Please, those fucking morons? Statesman and the others couldn’t find their arses with both hands without us telling them where it is and you know it. They will be easily taken care of in the same way I take care of you and your friends. God, it will be so satisfying to see all of you lose control and tear each other apart. And don’t worry, we will find the agents who are still afield as well, and take care of them personally. By this time tomorrow, Kingsman will be nothing but a graveyard.”

“It will never work, Merlin will never trade the passwords for me.”

“No, he won’t, but he may for someone else. Bring them in.”

The door opens and Michelle and Daisy Unwin shuffle into the room. Michelle has a black eye and a split lip, Daisy is crying in her arms. Michelle’s knuckles are bloody, her jeans are torn, and the light jacket she wears looks like someone had dragged her by it. Daisy’s dress is also dirty and worse for wear. Harry’s rage kicks up one notch.

Gwaine trains a gun on Harry. “Accolon, if you will keep Ms. Unwin and the brat over there, Cardoc can untie Harry. Now Harry, as Cardoc frees you, you will stand up slowly and move to the corner in back of you. If you make one movement towards me or anyone else in this room, I will put a bullet in your head, and I won’t miss, you can fucking count on that.”

Harry stands when the ropes are untied, massaging his wrists and trying to figure a way out of this monumental clusterfuck he, and now Eggsy’s family, are in. _I will never, ever hide anything from Merlin again,_ he thinks. If the man wants a written schedule of his bowel movements he’ll notate it in fucking calligraphy if he has to. He meets Michelle’s eyes and is shocked at the depth of hatred he sees in them.

“What do they have to do with any of this, Gwaine?”

“They are what is going to make Merlin give up those codes, and himself, and Eggsy. If he does not, I will transmit Valentine’s signal into this room and he can watch as you slaughter the remaining Unwins right before his eyes.”

“You said you needed the codes and the hardware to use the signal.”

“I need the codes for large scale transmission, but I have one sim card in this transmitter right here, and this one card is enough to fill this room. If I do not get what I want in the time frame I want, I will turn this transmitter on for three minutes.” He looks a Harry, his smile full of knives.

“Now, who do you think will still be standing in this room after three minutes? You’ve seen what the signal does and how quickly it does it. Even if there is a small chance you stop me, what will be the cost? What will Eggsy think of you once he has watched you tear his mother and sister apart?” Harry’s eyes go wide. “He will beat down my door, begging me to help him lay waste to Kingsman.”

“My Eggsy is dead, you stupid fucker. He won’t care a wit.” Michelle says from her corner of the room.

“Oh, you absolute dumb cow, your son is very much alive. He didn’t even come see you?” Michelle makes a choked sound and clutches Daisy tighter. “Maybe you’re right, maybe he doesn’t care, maybe he was happy to be rid of you and was happy to have that particular albatross taken from around his neck.” Her shoulders slump. “I might be doing him a favor. No matter, we will know soon enough. Start the camera, Cardoc.”

—————

Merlin was one minute from going absolutely insane when his glasses pinged.

 _Turn your monitor on to receive the following signal_ came across his vision, followed by a long stream of numbers, _make sure the boy is with you._

“Eggsy, will you join me in my office? Morgana, there will be a transmission coming through to my monitors. You are to do your level best to trace its course, but you do not view it until I tell you to.” Morgana nods once and immediately begins typing furiously.

“Merlin, I am a but fucking busy right now trying to figure out where the fuck...”

“Eggsy! That was an order. My office. Now.”

Eggsy follows him, grumbling under his breath. “I don’t see how this is the time for us to be having heart to hearts in your goddamn office, bruv.”

Merlin slams the door shut behind him and leans over in Eggsy’s face. “Someone just pinged my glasses, something only Kingsman technology can do, and gave me a signal to lock on to in order to view a transmission. Now if you just do as you’re told for a moment, we may be about to find out who has Harry and why.”

Eggsy’s face pales. “Sorry.”

Merlin simply turns, taps a few buttons and his monitors flare to life, only to be filled with a man’s face. _Gwaine, that traitorous bastard,_ Merlin thinks, grinding his teeth.

“Hello, gentleman.”

“Holy shit, that’s Gwaine!” Eggsy exclaims.

“Yes, Eggsy, thank you for pointing out the obvious.”

Gwaine continues speaking. “By now you will have realized that I have Harry,” the camera view widens to show Harry in the corner of the room, pinned there by Gwaine’s gun. He is blinking rapidly, like he had just come out of the dark and is trying to adjust to the sudden light. “What I want is the Valentine hardware and the codes to Kingsman’s servers so I can download the software.”

“Become a tech wizard when you became a traitor, then?” Merlin says, even though Gwaine cannot hear him.

“I can almost hear you, Merlin, wondering how I plan to use the V-Day tech with my limited knowledge on the subject. But that is where you come in. You will personally bring me the codes, and the hardware, and then you will stay with me to run the tech for me. And as for you Eggsy, I was a little miffed when I came back to Kentucky to find you had already left, and even disposed of the phone I gave you. That was rude, but what I expected from a piece of trash like you is beyond fucking me. 

“You will accompany Merlin and stay with me as well. Even missing an eye, you can still be useful to me. I plan on keeping you as my personal attack dog, to send out to kill, at my pleasure. I watched you at that church. All those people Eggsy, dead at your hands. You fucking loved it, I saw it in your face.” Eggsy makes a choked sound next to Merlin, and he reaches out to put a steadying hand on the younger man’s arm, “Anyone with that much animal in them deserves to be treated like one, don’t you agree? I have already picked out your collar. But, back to the matter at hand. Now, as Harry was so right to point out to me earlier, his life is not worth the tech. But I have to wonder, are theirs?”

The camera pans over to show Eggsy’s mother and sister.

“Jesus fucking Christ. I thought they were safe!” Eggsy yells.

Merlin doesn’t answer, he just continues looking at the screen in front of him, horrified.

The camera moves back to Gwaine. “I have this.” He holds up a transmitter and wiggles it in front of the camera. “It contains a sim chip of Valentine’s making. You have one hour before I contact you again to decide what you would like to do. Your choices are this, either bring me what I want or I turn on the sim chip on in this room. I think the signal should last about three to five minutes, giving me enough time to get away of course, and giving Harry enough time to slaughter Eggsy’s family.” 

The screen goes blank. 

Eggsy speaks first. “Well, that’s us fucked then, innit? We can’t give him the tech and we can’t sit on our arses and watch the people we love kill each other. I am really fucking hoping you got a plan, Merlin, because if you don’t…” 

“I might be able to think of one if you stop fucking talking for five fucking minutes.” 

Eggsy blinks at him, taken aback. “We ain’t gonna solve shit if we go at each other’s throats, yeah?” 

“I’m sorry, Eggsy.” Merlin braces his hands on the desk in front of him and breathes through his nose harshly, once, twice. “You’re right. But I am all out of ideas at this point.” 

“Who do we have here that can help?” 

“Absolutely no one. Every agent we have is out on a mission. It’s you and me lad, and the techs if we need them, but they know fuck all about field work.” 

“Have Morgana bring the transmission up again, something is there, I just can’t figure out what.” 

Merlin calls out to Morgana and the screens come to life once more. They watch it three times before Eggsy jumps next to him. 

“What is it? Because I don’t see a damned thing we can use.” 

“Play it again, and watch Harry, watch his eyes.” 

Merlin does and sees it too. “It’s Morse Code. Let me rewind it.” 

Harry blinks out - ..- -. -. . .-.. -- -.-- --- ..-. ..-. .. -.-. . .. -. -- .- -. --- .-. over and over again. Eggsy reads off the letters as Merlin writes them down. _Tunnelmyofficeinmanor._  

“I don’t know anything about a tunnel in his office,” Merlin says, looking down at the paper in front of him.

Eggsy looks at his watch. “We got fifty minutes left, mate. You keep thinking and I’ll go back into Harry’s office and look around.” 

Merlin nods and Eggsy is gone. For a moment he just sits in the quiet, paralyzed by the choices he has in front of him. He knows Eggsy is right. They cannot hand over the V-Tech they have stored on their servers and in the lab, millions of people will die if they do. But if they don’t, that means Harry, because Merlin is under no illusion who will come out of that room, if anyone does, will tear Eggsy’s family apart. Literally. He knows Harry will not be able to survive the aftermath of this. There won’t be an issue of hiding guns this time. No, this time, Merlin may shoot Harry himself to put him out of his misery, and then eat the second bullet so he doesn’t have to deal with his own guilt. That is, if Eggsy doesn’t kill them both first. Merlin’s head hits the desk. _He cannot see a way to stop this._  

Eggsy comes back ten minutes later. His hands are dirty and there is dust all over his suit, a smudge of dirt darkens one cheekbone. 

“Harry wasn’t lying, the bookcase behind his desk swings out to a door, leading down into a dark tunnel. I went down it for a few minutes because I came back and closed it up. I didn’t think it would do go rush in there blind when they are holding Harry and my girls, yeah? Came up with anything yet?” 

“No, I cannot think of a single way out of this. We have to go to Gwaine when he calls, of course, but once we get there, if he sees that we have come armed, or we don’t have the tech, he will turn the signal on. Not knowing where they are specifically in the manor, and therefore, not knowing the layout of where they are keeping Harry, your mother and your sister, means I don’t know if we can get to them before they kill each other. Fuck!” Merlin slams his hand down on the desk.

“You know, I remember everything that happened to me in the church. I remember each kill, each death rattle, each spray of blood across my face. I remember, in vivid fucking color, mate, the feeling of chewing someone’s fingers off of their hand. I also remember a few seconds when the blast from my grenade stopped me from hearing the signal, I could think clearly for just a moment until my head cleared and the signal took over again. So, it seems to me that we need to get close enough to where ever they are keeping Harry and my family that we can drown out the signal, if, of course, we can’t stop it before it goes off.” 

“And how do you propose we do that?” 

“How about those flash bangs you used on us during training. Those fuckers fucked me up for an hour afterwards.” 

“I don’t know how they may affect your sister, her being so young, Eggsy.” 

“Better deaf than dead, bruv, and I am sure she would agree with you.” 

“Right.” Merlin thinks for a moment, his hazel eyes flicking about the room quickly, but seeing nothing, too deep in his own head. He pushes a button on the comms. “Morgana, I need you to find me any plans for the manor that show a passageway leading out the western wall of Arthur’s office. You have ten minutes.”

—————

Gwaine lays the transmitter down on the floor. “Don’t worry about trying to break the transmitter. I had it made especially for this. The casing can withstand a tank driving over it. The signal is set to go off in one hour, unless I stop it, which will only happen once I have what I have come for. Or, shit, even if I do have what I want, I may allow it to go off anyway, just for the sheer satisfaction of watching all of you, mostly you Harry, fucking die.” He nods to the mirror in the corner of the room, and Harry knows that they are being watched. “I could make Eggsy watch it over and over again until he breaks.” 

Harry watches Gwaine saunter out of the room, followed by Cardoc and Accolon, with dread curdling in his stomach. He picks up the transmitter after they have left, looking over it. He smashes it against the wall with all the strength he has and checks it. Gwaine was right, not even a crack. He can’t even find a seam in the casing; it looks like one single piece of metal with no way in to get to the chip that lies inside. He throws it across the room, where it bounces off the wall with a hollow clang.

He fists his hands through his hair in frustration. _Think man, think!_ He paces around the room, running his fingers over the door, checking its hinges, the strength of the lock. Back and forth he goes, pace pace pace, even though je realizes that there is no way out of this room. 

Michelle chooses this time to begin to talk. “What’s he mean, Eggsy’s alive? You lot been lying to me this entire time? Keeping him from me, or was he right? Eggsy just didn’t want to see me or Dais?” Michelle asks him, her eyes blazing. “Can’t you people just leave us alone?” 

“Ms. Unwin, Eggsy is alive, but we only found out a few weeks ago. One of the first things he asked about was the well being of you and his sister. However, it has been a,” Harry searches for the right word, “tumultuous time and I think he was trying to get his affairs in order before he sought you both out, but he had no intention of hiding himself from you.” 

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, like I can believe anything you say.” 

“At this point, madam, it hardly matters if you can or cannot believe me. You were in London during V-Day. You know what will happen if that signal goes off in this room, and whether you lie to yourself about who and what I am or not,” Michelle’s eyes narrow at him and she clutches Daisy tighter, “you know that I will be able to kill you and the girl within seconds if it going off, so right now we need to figure out a way so that does not happen.” 

Harry looks around the room, his eyes landing on the chair that is still bolted to the floor and the ropes Gwaine and Cardoc left behind. _Who’s sloppy now?_ His eyes close briefly. _Better me than them, Eggsy will never get over their loss._ If Michelle ties him to the chair, he will not be able to get to her and Daisy. They, of course, will be able to get to him, and if he is restrained, Michelle, will, most likely, be able to kill him in the three minutes the signal is going off. He saw the civilians at the church. He saw how easily they were able to slaughter their fellow parishioners. He has no doubt Michelle will be able to do the same. He just hopes that it takes her long enough with him, because he knows, even tied, he will fight back, that she doesn’t make it to the girl before the signal stops. He sits down.

“Michelle, pick up the ropes and ties to me to the chair, as tight as you possibly can.”

“What?” 

“Put Daisy down in the corner and come over here and tie me to the chair. We need to keep me restrained so I cannot get to you or Daisy, do you understand?” 

She comes up behind him and begins wrapping the ropes around his wrists, his arms, binding them to the chair. “My ankles as well, if you please.” 

She crouches down in front of him, tying his ankles. At one point she glances up and Harry notices for the first time that she is where Eggsy got his eyes. Green with hints of brown, like sunlight in a forest, and just being able to see that once more gives him a little bit of peace. Michelle will make it out of here, and Daisy too, Eggsy will keep his family. That is all that matters. 

“What about you then. Mr. Hart? How’s you going to defend yourself against me when that thing goes off?” Michelle stands. 

“I think you can call me Harry with everything that is going on. And as for not being able to defend myself, that’s rather the point, dear lady. I am hoping that you will focus on me when the signal starts and therefore will leave Daisy alone.” 

“So you’re doing to let yourself die to save us?” 

“Yes, Michelle, I am. Your husband sacrificed himself to save me so many years ago, and by doing so, sentenced you and Eggsy to a life that never should have happened. Now the time has come for me to repay the favor, sacrificing myself so that you, Eggsy, and little Daisy can have the life you should have had from the beginning. I have no regrets in this. Although…” 

“What?” 

“I do hope that you would give Eggsy a message for me if this all goes as well as I hope it to. Tell him that he was the brightest, most beloved thing that I have ever had the privilege of holding. Thank him for bringing some much needed warmth into my life.” 

“Jesus. Are you in love with my son?” Michelle asks, her eyes wide in surprise. 

“Completely, although I was hoping for different circumstances when you found out.” 

“It’s probably a good thing I found out like this, I can’t slap a man who is willing to die for me, yeah? But, if we do make it out of here, consider it owed.” 

“Michelle, if we make it out of this, I will suffer your wrath gladly.” He smiles weakly at her. She does not return it. 

Harry hears a gun go off outside the doors, muffled by the metal. Gwaine’s voice comes through the transmitter but he cannot focus on it. A tinny sound starts to trickle through the transmitter and into his ears, like an overly friendly bee circling his head. He shakes his head back and forth like a dog, concentrating on his breathing. Harry clenches his eyes shut and drops his chin to his chest. His hair hangs in his eyes, the fringe tickling the bridge of his nose. This angers him inordinately. The signal is starting to affect him. _This is Eggsy’s mother, his sister. My name is Harry Hart. I will not kill them. This is Eggsy’s mother, his sister. My name is Harry Hart. I will not kill them,_ he chants to himself. In the corner, Daisy howls while Michelle drives her heel into the transmitter over and over. She screams in frustration. The casing does not break. 

The signal starts. It bores through his head like an ice pick straight to his brain. _This is Eggsy’s mother, his sister. My name is Harry Hart._ His arms tense and the ropes break. _I_ will _kill them._  

————— 

Merlin’s glasses ping. “I found the plans you needed Merlin. The passage was built at the same time the original manor was built, and only appears on these blueprints, if you can call some scribbles on parchment blueprints. Every subsequent set of blueprints for each addition makes no mention of it, which explains why it has stayed hid for so long, no one has known about it for over two centuries.” 

“Bring the blueprints in Morgana."

“Already on my way to you.”

Moments later, Morgana comes in, knocks Eggsy’s feet of the table where he was resting them, and spreads the blueprints out.

Merlin comes and stands by her shoulder. Eggsy looks over the other one. “As you can see, Sir, the passage way leads from Arthur’s office all the way under the manor, and comes out in what looks to be a cave about three miles out in the forest surrounding the manor.” She traces one hot pink nail down a thin black line on the distressingly thin paper. “But what I found interesting about this are these two small boxes,” she moves her finger back up the line and taps it next to two boxes clustered around the line, about a one-third of the full tunnel’s length away from Arthur’s office. “These could symbolize rooms or some other open area.”

“Or someone could have been doodling on the paper.” Eggsy interjects.

“Doubtful, there are no other markings on this paper that do not need to be there, these mean something.”

“I agree, Morgana. Excellent work, you’re dismissed.” Merlin says while bending closer to the table to examine the boxes. Morgana nods once and leaves.

“What are you thinking Merlin? I know you’re on to something because you’re almost smiling, and as far as I can see we don’t have nothing to smile about unless you know something I don’t, yeah?”

Merlin flicks his eyes up to Eggsy. “Why don’t you go have one of those disgusting cigarettes, which you will be quitting when this is all said and done, I do hope you realize, and just let me think for a few moments in peace.”

Eggsy returns a few minutes later reeking of smoke. Merlin breathes deeply. “I miss those death sticks sometimes.”

“I’ll give ya one, mate.”

“No thanks, Harry and I had one a few years back and it took me another year to put them down again. I’ll just live vicariously through you. At least for the next day or so.” He takes his glasses off and scrubs at his face. “Right, so from what Harry said, or blinked, to us, they are all still in the manor, which means they have to be in this area.” He taps the boxes again with one long finger. “So we have a choice. We try to go there now, you and I, and get the drop on Gwaine, and hopefully, save Harry and the ladies. Or we wait for Gawine to contact us, and go in there on his terms, and try to save them. The problem is, we are not positive that these boxes do signify rooms, so we are taking the risk that we head down into that tunnel, not knowing what is ahead of us, and find nothing. When Gwaine realizes we are gone, he will activate the transmitter and… well…”

“Yeah, well…” Eggsy says.

“What do you think, Eggsy?”

Eggsy shoves his hands in his pockets. Harry will kill him for treating that suit like that, Merlin thinks. “The way I see it, there is a risk no matter what we do. One, If we go under his terms, he will definitely check us for weapons, and since he is a Kingsman…”

“Was a fucking Kingsman,” Merlin practically growls out.

“… was a fucking Kingman, he will know to check us for everything, so we won’t have any chance get through him to Harry and my girls unless we can take them down hand to hand. That’s at least three of them, Gwaine, Cardoc, and Accolon, who will have weapons against us two that don’t. Now, I am not saying we couldn’t do it, but I don’t like the odds when people we love lives are hanging in the balance. Two, if we go into the tunnel and they ain’t there, well Harry and my girls are dead anyway. Three, if we go in there and surprise them, we actually do have a pretty damn good chance of getting through them to Harry and the girls. I say we take the chance, I really don’t see a better choice.”

“There’s a good lad.” Merlin smiles at him with pride. “You would have made a fine agent had this mess not happened, and you’re already making an excellent Excalibur.” Merlin walks over and claps him on the shoulder. “Now we will be going in almost blind. I am going to have Morgana in here, running comms for us, but I don’t know if I trust anyone else to know what is going on at this point, not with so much at stake. We have twenty minutes to arm ourselves and get through that tunnel. If I am right in my math, which I always fucking am, the rooms should be about one mile into the tunnel. I hope that smoking habit hasn’t affected your ability to run an eight-minute mile.”

Merlin and Eggsy are at the passageway in Arthur’s office minutes later. Merlin gives Eggsy some of the flashbangs he grabbed from the training facilities while Eggsy hands over three of the guns he took from the armory.

Merlin taps his glasses. “Morgana, I need you to go into my office, shut and lock the door, tell no one what you are doing. Gwaine has taken Arthur and Eggsy and I are heading into the passageway in hopes that you weren’t wrong about those rooms. Pull up mine and Eggsy’s feeds once you get in there. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir,” her voice comes back to them through their glasses.

“Good. Switch to night vision, Eggsy, and let’s go.”

Merlin and Eggsy run as quickly and as silently as they can through the tunnel. About seven minutes in, precisely where Merlin expected it, light starts to seep into their glasses through the darkness.

“You were right, Morgana. There is an open area up ahead.”

They slow to a quiet creep, guns leading the way. As they get closer, they can make out the forms of two guards just here the tunnel seems to open up. Merlin puts a hand out to stop Eggsy. He holds up two fingers, points at his watch, and indicates that Eggsy should get the left one and he will get the right. They raise their wrists simultaneously then run forward to catch the men before they hit the floor.

There are two rooms cut into the rock. The rooms have metal doors on them. They can hear Gwaine’s voice murmuring through one of the doors. Merlin and Eggsy share a look; the other room must be where Harry and Eggsy’s family are. Eggsy is turning to head towards that room when a bullet flies by his head. Merlin turns to see Cardoc coming at them, gun raised and firing. He and Eggsy throw themselves back into the cover of the tunnel.

The door to the room that Gwaine was in bangs open and Gwaine walks out with Accolon, who is already firing. Gwaine backs up behind him, speaking into the transmitter. “It seems that Merlin and Eggsy have decided to attempt an ill advised rescue, so we are starting the festivities early. May the odds be ever in your favor!” Merlin watches in horror as Gwaine’s finger pushes a button.

“He’s started the signal Eggsy, we have got to get into that room. Ah! Fuck!” Merlin shouts as a bullet catches him in the upper arm. Eggsy whips around the corner, aiming and firing, and Cardoc drops to the floor with a perfect third eye.

“You come down without a fucking suit, Merls? Really.”

“There wasn’t a lot of time if you remember correctly. I will keep these two busy. You have got to get in there and stop that signal.” Merlin turns back, ignoring the pain in his arm and begins firing cover rounds for Eggsy. “Now, lad, for fuck's sake.”

Eggsy nods and runs to the other door, as he moved he taps his glasses. “Morgana, I need you to play the loudest, most annoying music you have over the comms, as loud as you can make it, until I tell you to stop, yeah?”

“On it.”

Eggsy winces as _Call Me Maybe_ comes blaring, and he means _blaring_ , over his glasses. He looks back at Merlin who looks like he may just walk out into the bullets in order to put himself out of his misery. Eggsy hopes his idea works. Even through the music he can feel something niggling at his brain, something small and angry. Knowing what that signal feels like when it takes over makes him scared to open that door, scared to subject himself to its call once more. 

The door is locked from the outside with a simple padlock, easily removed with a shot from his gun. He wrenches the door open to see Harry stand up from a chair he apparently was tied to and advance on his mother, who, thank god, has also chosen Harry as her target and not Daisy, who is in the corner opposite from Eggsy, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Eggsy wastes no time. He runs into the room, vaulting over the chair, heading to Daisy. The worm, despite the music screaming through his ears, is burrowing deeper, so much deeper, making him want to join his mother and Harry, who are starting to grapple with each other. Michelle has her hands out like claws, going for Harry’s eyes while Harry reaches for her throat. As Eggsy vaults over the chair he reaches into his suit, grabs the flash bang, pulls the pin and throws it behind him, landing on his knees and sliding to rest in front of Daisy. He crouches over her and waits for it to go off.

A moment later there is nothing but white light and muffled music in his ears. He looks up. Harry and his mother are on their hands and knees on the floor, shaking their heads and clenching their eyes shut. Even though he can’t hear it, he knows the signal is still transmitting by the vibrations he feels rolling over him. The anger in his head, while ignorable, is still there. He stands up from where Daisy sits, now quiet, stunned from the flash bang, in the corner and backtracks through the room, grabbing the transmitter off the floor. He runs back out into the hall, throwing the transmitter at Gwaine and Accolon, who are still too focused on keeping Merlin pressed against the tunnel walls with their gunfire. As he lobs the transmitter, he sees Merlin catch the motion out of the corner of his eye and turn towards him. Eggsy jerks his head to the now open room and raises his gun to fire at the men in front of them, backing towards the room himself as Merlin runs past him and inside.

The last thing Eggsy sees before he slams the door shut is Gwaine’s look of horror when he sees the transmitter lying at his feet, but that quickly disappears when Accolon raises his gun and fires making Gwaine’s head disappear in a puff of blood, brain matter, and skull fragments. Eggsy launches a lighter grenade at the transmitter, and runs into the room with the rest, slamming the door shut behind him. The door rattles once with the muffled _whump_ of the grenade igniting behind him.

“Morgana, you can stop the music now.” It skips to _Baby, Hit Me One More Time_. “Stop the music, not skip it. Jesus.”

“Oh, my apologies, Sir. I must have misunderstood.”

Merlin is on the floor with Daisy, checking her over for any side effects from the flash grenade. He doesn’t seem to find any because he then moves to Eggsy’s mother. She has a black eye and a split lip, from who Eggsy isn’t sure, but he will take it because it could have been so much worse. He goes to his knees next to Harry, who has graduated from all fours to sitting there somewhat dazed. Eggsy pulls him to his chest, pressing his lips over and over to his soft hair.

“Thank God,” he finds himself whispering, “thank God.”

Once everyone can stand, Michelle walks over to Harry and hugs him tightly. “Thank you,” she mumbles into his shirt. He returns the hug but meets Eggsy’s eyes over his shoulder. He looks terrified. She pulls back and starts to walk over to Daisy, stops, turns back to Harry and promptly slaps the right side of his face with her open palm. Harry rocks back on his feet.

“Oi!” Eggsy yells. “What the fuck, mum?”

Harry smiles while rubbing his cheek. He inclines his head in a small bow. “Understood, madam.”

Eggsy looks back and forth between them completely confused. Harry looks at him. “Inside joke, Eggsy, my dear, I am terribly afraid you had to be there.”

Michelle looks at Eggsy, her eyes wet. She reaches her hand towards him, the same one that just slapped Harry and Eggsy braces himself, he deserves it after all, but the blow never comes. Instead, she traces her hand over the scar. “My precious Egg, what happened to you?” she cries as she pulls him to her.

“I’m ok, mum, I promise. I will tell you everything, ok? I am so sorry for staying away so long, but I’ll explain everything, swear down,” he murmurs into her hair.

“You damn right you will, but right now, just don’t let go, yeah?”

Once Michelle is able to disentangle herself from Eggsy, they file out into the area between the rooms. Outside the door, the charred, smoking remains of three fallen, traitor knights lay on the floor. A twisted lump of metal lies next to them. Merlin pockets this and spits on the bodies.

The four of them start making the trek back through the tunnel, Merlin carrying Daisy with his good arm, while Eggsy walks behind Harry, who walks behind Michelle, in case one of them should fall. Once through the doorway into Harry’s office, Merlin shuts the bookcase entry.

“I want this sealed, Merlin. I don’t care what it takes.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Now, if you will be so kind as to follow me and the Unwin ladies to medical, we can all get seen to.” 

“I don’t really feel the need to…” Harry starts, he just wants to go home and crawl into bed with Eggsy. He might never leave his bed again. Ever.

“Harry, so help me god,” Eggsy interrupts, “you are going to fucking medical right now if I have to dart you and drag you there myself.”

“Language, Eggsy. Your sister is right here.”

“Sorry mum.” Eggsy scratches the nape of his neck and looks down sheepishly. Harry begins side stepping to the door, slowly. “I can still see you Harry, and I meant what I said.”

“Eggsy, darling, I am quite sure…” he breaks off, realizing that Merlin, Eggsy, and Michelle are all giving him the same dark look. Daisy is patting Merlin’s head and giggling. “… That, ah, a stop in medical might be exactly what I need.”

Four of them are given the all clear by medical and are allowed to leave a couple of hours later. Merlin, much to Harry’s absolute utter joy and delight, has to stay overnight so that Dr. Jameson can monitor the gunshot wound in his upper arm. It was just a graze, but a bit of his sweater has worked its way in with the bullet and must be monitored for infection. 

Harry cannot resist stopping by his room to rub it in.

“Now, Gregor, you know as well as I do that Dr. Jameson has your best interests at heart. Aren’t you the one who always tells us to listen to him?”

“You can go fuck yourself, Harry. It was a graze. I’ll not be staying here overnight. I have things to attend to.”

“Yes, you will, or you will find yourself on a week's forced leave.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would, with the greatest of pleasure.” Harry smiles sweetly. “In fact, I so hope you will try me.”

“Oh, aye? And who would run this place while I was gone? You?”

“Your people in Avalon could surely make it a week without you. I daresay they would welcome the vacation.”

“They adore me.”

“They have Stockholm Syndrome. Now,” Harry walks over to the bed and pulls the covers up around Merlin’s chest, smoothing them down, “you lay there like a good boy and I will see about having a nurse bring you some hot chocolate.”

“You touch these covers again and I’ll break your fucking hands, Harry. You won’t be able to wank for weeks.”

“I have Eggsy now, I am sure I would be able to come up with something.”

“Jesus fuck, just give me my clipboard and get the hell out of my face.”

Harry tuts at him. “No clipboard for you. You are under orders to sit in that bed and,” Harry goes back over to the table beside the door, “rest. I brought you gifts. Here is a novel that I am sure you will love and a couple of DVD’s if you don’t feel like reading.” Harry hands them both to Merlin.

“ _Fill it to the Rim With the Good Taste of Him? Baddie Laddies?_ Are you fucking kidding me? You expect me to watch shitty porn in medical?”

Harry doubles over with laughter, causing his still tender ribs to ache. “Your face is priceless, Gregor, truly. But no, I do not. Open the cases. I brought you two seasons of _Doctor Who_. I just wanted to start a rumor about the manor concerning your penchant for explicit porn.”

“Oh, and where did you get the cases then?”

“My own personal collection of course, but who would believe such scandalous lies about their sovereign king, hmm?”

“Every single person that knows you, you perverted sod.”

“Hmmm, that _is_ troubling. Anyway, I must be off. I get to go home. Enjoy your convalescence. If I hear one word of you moving from this room before eight tomorrow, I will make good on my threat.”

“Fine, now fuck off if you please.” Merlin looks thoughtfully at the DVD cases. “Perhaps an overnight stay wouldn’t be too much of an issue,” he glances over at Harry who is looking at him questioningly. “Percival just got in, perhaps he might be inclined to visit me. If I am to be in this place overnight, I should make the most of it.”

Harry feigns shock. “You absolutely depraved old man.”

“Says the wrinkled sod bumming a man half his age,” Merlin states dryly.

“Yes, that is true, but I am sure that he will bumming me at least some of the time.” Merlin glares at him while Harry positively beams. “With that, though, I will be off. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be sure to review to security footage later, perhaps add it to my collection.”

The book hits the wall next to his head. Harry laughs, blows Merlin a kiss, and takes his leave.

That night at home, Eggsy joins him in his immense tub, running a warm, wet flannel all over his body, cleaning away the grime and blood from his skin, a favor Harry returns with pleasure. When they finally make it to the bed, Eggsy prowls over his body, gently kissing every single bruise Accolon inflicted on him. He worships every single inch of Harry, murmuring endearments and _I love you_ ’s between kisses, _never leave me_ ’s between drags of his lips over Harry’s cock, _you are everything_ ’s over and over while he slowly and gently opens Harry up with his fingers until Harry is almost crying with the need to have Eggsy in him already.

When Eggsy finally slides home and starts moving ever so slowly within him, Harry in convinced that he will die like this, being driven slowly insane by the love of his life making molasses slow love to him. He has never been taken apart so completely by anyone before. His hands clench in the sheets.

“Harder, Eggsy, harder." 

“No, love, your ribs can’t take it right now, and besides, I am rather enjoying the sight of you coming undone.” He rolls his hips slowly, going even deeper. Harry tilts his hips slightly so that Eggsy’s cock drags over his prostate.

“Fuck Eggsy, I am so close.” His hands move to Eggsy’s thighs, blunt nails digging in as he inches closer and closer to oblivion.

“Come on then, show me how good I make you feel Harry, show me how much you love it.” Eggsy moves in short slow strokes, making sure to keep the angle that is making Harry crazy.

“Eggsy… Fuck!” He yells and he comes all over himself, clenching around Eggsy where he is buried deep inside him. Eggsy fucks him through it, and as soon as he feels Harry go pliant, he gives one more deep thrust and spends himself in Harry. He pulls out as soon as he softens, falling to the side as to not put pressure on Harry’s ribs. Eggsy kisses him softly.

“I love you, Harry, I’m going to love you forever.”

Harry wraps his arms around Eggsy, pulling him as close as he can. “Forever,” he replies, whispering it into Eggsy’s hair.

Later, when they are lying in bed, clean again, and intertwined, Eggsy starts to speak softly. “I thought I was going to lose you, Harry. I thought we weren’t going to get there in time and I was going to find that the three most important people in my life had torn each other apart. I couldn’t bear the thought of you having to live with the knowledge of what you did when you were not in control of yourself like,” Eggsy’s voice breaks, “like I have to.”

Harry pulls him closer. “You got to me in time, my dearest, you saved all of us. You and Merlin.”

“I remember it all. Every life I took, how I took them, how much I enjoyed it. Gwaine was right, I’m an animal, I am.” Eggsy sobs into Harry’s chest and Harry’s heart splinters.

“No, Eggsy, _never_. It wasn’t your fault, Eggsy. I promise you. You had no control, you couldn’t stop it. _It’s not your fault._ ” Harry tilts Eggsy’s face up and thumbs away his tears. Harry pulls him back to his chest, rocking him. “It wasn’t your fault,” he repeats while Eggsy cries and cries. Harry thinks that he will broach the subject of Viviane with Eggsy tomorrow.

Harry wakes the next morning to an empty bed and the smell of coffee floating up the stairs. He fumbles down the stairs, in his entire life he has yet to see a morning he greeted clearheadedly, and sees Eggsy standing in the kitchen, barefoot, wearing Kingsman black trousers with a gray pinstripe, glasses, and a dark gray button up. He’s tapping on his phone one handed while holding a cup of coffee in the other. Harry can still see the pinched looked he carries around his eyes, but the smile he gives Harry when he notices him in his robe in the doorway is the same one Harry fell in love with.

“Was gonna go up and wake you if you weren’t down in ten, bruv. We got a lot to do. Here’s some coffee,” he presses a steaming cup into Harry’s hands and pushes him back up the stairs. “Now go back up there and get pretty. Merlin is waiting on us.”

“I seem to have missed something. Why is Merlin waiting on _us_ exactly, and when did you get a new suit?” 

“Suits, plural. I’m a knight after all. It all happened while you were hanging out with Gwaine, reminiscing on old times. For Arthur, you really are a shit observer.”

“Eggsy, we haven’t had a vote yet, we haven’t even discussed possible places for you.”

“Merls took care of that, that man needs a raise, by the way, total guv he is, he knighted me.”

“He can’t do that.”

“He can if he makes me Excalibur,” Eggsy beams at him.

Harry is instantly horrified. Both Merlin _and_ Eggsy hovering around him like two completely overbearing nannies? His plans he had of actually doing fieldwork once in a while to save him from the tedium of deskwork seem to evaporate instantly. He hardly needs to be wrapped in bubble wrap.

“Oh no, definitely not. I do not need a bodyguard, much less one that is my, erm, my lover, for lack of a better term.”

“Not boyfriend? Partner? Apple of your eye?”

“Yes, all of those things. But I will not have a bodyguard.”

“Nope, no take-backsies. I am Excalibur, and I am your bodyguard, which until you can prove to Merlin and me that you aren’t a complete berk who will hide death threats and the like from us, I will be guarding you _very_ closely. Where you go, I go. I am going to be so far up your arse you won’t be able to shit without me smelling it.”

“Charming.”

“It’s a gift. Now, hop to, we’re already thirty minutes late, which for you is still early, but I would like to make a somewhat decent impression on my first day.”

Harry begins shuffling up the stairs, sipping his coffee and formulating plans to nip this in the bud directly. Behind him, Eggsy’s glasses ping. He touches them and cocks his head to the side, listening.

“Merlin says the implant he put in your head is letting him know what you are thinking and that he wishes you the best of luck those plans. Also, he says get your arse to work before he drags you there himself, and he won’t even let you pomade your hair before.” 

Harry stops short. His hand flies to his neck.

Eggsy breaks into laughter behind him. “Now, he says, got you, you ‘fecking twat,’ and that you will find something new in your collection - what’s he talking about, your collection? - when you get to work.”

“Please pass along my greetings and hope for a good morning, and tell him that I will be in when I get in. I am the fucking boss in case he has forgotten.”

Harry makes it in by half nine. He would have made it in by nine had he not taken thirty minutes to examine every inch of his neck and head for an implant.

 

 

**_Fin._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I have said it before, but thank you so very much for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting. This is the longest thing I have ever written and I am immensely proud of it. Knowing others enjoyed it is icing on the cake, so to speak. 
> 
> I have my next, what I think will be long, fic outlined, a not nice dark!Harry fic, and a couple ideas of what could be short ones, although I doubt I could make them "short." 
> 
> And as always, let me know if you see any mistakes I missed, and I welcome any conceit either in comments or is you want to contact me on tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Violyntfemme on tumblr as well, if you would like to talk to me.


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